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THE SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE j 



The World Beautiful. First Series 
The World Beautiful. Second Series 
The World Beautiful, Third Series 
After her Death. The Story of a Summer 
From Dreamland Sent, and Other Poems 
A Study of Elizabeth Barrett Browning 
The Spiritual Significance 
Kate Field : A Record 



THE 



Spiritual Significance 



OR 



3ieat{} as an lE&mt in Hife 



LILIAN WHITING 
u 

Author of " The World Beautiful," in three volumes, First, Second, 
and Third Series ; " After Her Death," " From Dreamland 
Sent," "Kate Field, a Record," " Study of 
Elizabeth Barrett Browning," etc. 



Death is not the end of life, but only an event in life 

Rt. Rev. Dr. Phillips Brooks 



BOSTON 

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 
1900 



795S2 



Library of Congreae 

Two Copies Received 
NOV 23 1900 

Copyright entry 

SECOND COPY 

Oelivered to 

ORDER DIVISION 

DEC 26 1900 



No 






Copyright, 1900, 
By Little, Brown, and Company, 

All rights reserved. 



UNIVERSITY PRESS • JOHN WILSON 
AND SON • CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. 



<.:> 



f 



TO 

My Beloved Rector and Friend^ 

REV. E. WINCHESTER DONALD, D.D. 

STrtnita Ct)urcf); JSoston, 

WITH THE GRATEFUL RECOGNITION OF HIS 

SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP, AND THE 

FAITHFUL DEVOTION OF 

LILIAN WHITING. 



" Be ye steadfast, immovable, always 
aboujiding in the work oj the Lord." 



SOULS IN PROGEESS 




NEW radiance is imparted to 
daily life by seeing it in its true 
relation to that endless persist- 
ence of endeavor and achievement which 
constitutes Immortality. Nothing is fatal, 
not even sin, because nothing is final. 
The individual environment is created, 
controlled, and changed by the person to 
whom it pertains. Its quality, its resources, 
and its extension vary in exact correspond- 
ence with his spiritual life. This hypoth- 
esis is vividly illustrated by many per- 
sonal examples that might be selected for 
consideration. The world of Plato differs 
from that of Nero as the qualities of the 
one differ from those of the other. The 
mental attitude creates the outer circum- 



iv The Spiritual Significance, 

stances and events, and the time of this 
re-creation of life is by no means relegated 
to the period which begins with the change 
we call death. Again^ between that state 
and the present there is no fixed and 
definite line. There are new conditions 
which man may enter upon without wait- 
ing for death; and there may be a very 
definite and comforting reliance on con- 
ditions to be entered upon by means of 
that change. In this world we confi- 
dently plan for certain things, — experi- 
ences, achievements, what one will, — that 
shall be ours next year, or in another dec- 
ade. With the same confident certainty of 
anticipation may we look forward to new 
achievements, new groupings, fresh com- 
binations, in the world to come. Life is 
an endless stream of flowing conditions 
whose shape is subject to the controlling 
power of thought and purpose. The new 
environment is constantly created out 
of the old, but it is by the fulfilment 
and not by the repudiation of all just 



Souls in Progress. 



obligations and duties. The fact that it 
can be so created, however, illumines our 
sky with the Star of promise. That the 
life which holds its ideals with unfalter- 
ing devotion will ultimately realize those 
ideals in actual and outer circumstances 
as well as in its inner experiences, is as 
unquestionable in its absolute certainty as 
are the results of a mathematical equation. 

" 'T is not too late to seek a newer world." 

It is never too late, because nothing is 
fatal, nothing is final. If one has been 
in the wrong path, forsake it and seek the 
right one. Then go forward. All the 
power of the moral universe shall com- 
panion and sustain him. Is one in trouble 
because sometime and somewhere he has 
made an error of judgment, a wrong 
choice ? Let him fulfil its due obligations ; 
but let him also have the moral courage to 
refuse its undue exactions. To be stead- 
fast to a mistake, to an unwise choice, is 
to subject life to a perpetual corrosive 



vi The Spiritual Significance, 

action which frets away all its fine gold of 
nobler possibilities. Suicide is justly held 
to be a crime ; but there may be a suicide 
of hopes, of enthusiasms, of capacities, of 
potential achievements ; and to cut one's 
self off from these when once revealed by 
some sudden Voice or Vision ; to continue 
to accept conditions that deny rather than 
to struggle through to those that offer 
new energy and progress, — is perhaps a 
species of mental and moral suicide whose 
results may be more fatal than those 
which pertain only to the physical life. 
To discern clearly an error implies the 
immediate responsibility to forsake it, and 
turn the power of one's thought to the 
prevision of new and happier conditions. 
They shall rise upon his vision and endue 
his life with new and untold blessedness, 
and give to him a fuller comprehension of 
the deep spiritual significance of human 
life. He shall realize that 

'^This world is not conclusion: 
A sequel lies beyond." 



Souls in Progress. vii 

Nothing is hopeless to him who aspires, 
who loves, who prays, for the entire 
spiritual universe is designed for the hope 
and the help of souls in progress. 

L. W. 
The Brunswick, 

Boston, October, 1900. 



]^/.^'. 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

The Spiritual Significance .... 13 

Vision and Achievement 123 

Between the Seen and the Unseen . 205 

Psychic Communication ... . . . 263 

The Gates of New Life 335 



THE SPIKITUAL SIGNIFICANCE. 



Whither goes the soul when it at death departs from the body ? 

What kind of body shall the glorified body be ? The soul and 
spirit of Christ, what are they ? And are they the same as ours ? 

What and where is Paradise ? ... Do not let any sophistry 
teach that thy God is far aloft from thee as the stars are. God 
is in thee. Power, might, majesty, heaveyi, paradise, elements, 
stars, the whole earth — is thine. . . . When thou prayest the 
Holy Ghost shall meet thee and help thee, and thy soul shall be 
the whole of heaven within thee. . . . In the name and in the 
strength of God love all men. Love thy neighbor as thy- 
self and do to thy neighbor as thou doest to thyself And do 
it now, for now is the accepted time, and now is the day of 
salvation. — Jacob Behmen. / 

The death of the body may indeed be the end of the sensa* 
tional use of our mind, but only the beginning of the intellectual 
use. The body would thus be, not the cause of our thinking, but 
merely a condition restrictive thereof and although esse^itial to a 
sensuous and animal consciousness, it may be regarded as an 
impeder of our pure spiritual life. — Kant. 



\y 



A., 



THE SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE. 



THE SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE. 

If a man could feel 
Not one day in the artist's ecstasy 
But every day, feast, fast, or working-day, 
The spiritual significance burn through 
The hieroglyphic of material shows, 
Henceforward he would paint the globe with wings. 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 

I will bring the blind by a way they knew not ; I will 
lead them in paths they have not known ; I will make 
darkness light before them, and crooked things straight, 

Isaiah xlii. 16. 

UMANITY is entering on a remark- 
able epoch of religious enlightenment 
that dawns in no iconoclastic or rev- 
olutionary manner, but rather as an inevitable 
sequence of the increasing knowledge and of the 
larger grasp of the divine laws of the universe. 
These laws pertain to both the scientific and 




14 The Spiritual Significance, 

the spiritual realm, each of which is equally 
under the divine appointment, for science itself 
is but the penetration into the forces of the 
universe. These reveal themselves to man in 
proportion as his faculties expand to an increas- 
ing recognition of their laws. As man is a two- 
fold being with a physical nature corresponding 
to his present environment, and a spiritual 
nature capable of infinite development and 
expansion correspondiug to the spiritual environ- 
ment, he is thus by the very law of his being an 
inhabitant of both the physical and the ethereal 
realms, each of which are but different degrees 
of manifestation of the spiritual universe. 
Science has ceased to designate matter and 
spirit as two separate and contrasting forces, 
and sees, instead, in matter a manifestation of 
spirit. Thus, the spiritual significance of life is 
its supreme meaning, and to recognize this signi- 
ficance as it may 

" burn through 
The hieroglyphic of material shows," 

is the responsibility as well as the privilege 
of our sojourn on earth. The spiritual signifi- 
cance of life writes itself in hieroglyphic that the 



The Spiritual Significance. 15 

progress of the ages interprets. Man is encom- 
passed round about with an atmosphere of the 
most sensitive receptivity to mental action, — an 
atmosphere in which thought writes its message 
and flashes its images ; in which, as on a sensitized 
plate, every impression is recorded, and in which 
thought — being a vital force — germinates and 
springs up to clothe itself in deeds. The only 
difference between those who lead great lives 
and those whose lives are insignificant is simply 
in the power to interpret the spiritual signifi- 
cance. Let one study an individual list of the 
names of those whose experiences and achieve- 
ments have left the world the better, — from 
Saint Augustine to Alcott ; from Luther, Wesley, 
Mazzini, Victor Hugo, Gladstone, Browning, 
Tennyson, Lincoln, Emerson, Margaret Fuller, 
Garrison, Lucy Stone, Mary A. Livermore, 
Julia Ward Howe, Phillips Brooks, Kate Field ; 
those who have left 

" The world the better for their being 
And gladder for their human speech," — • 

and it will be recognized that every life that 
has contributed to the world's advancement has 
been one that discerned the spiritual significance 



16 The Spiritual Significance. 

from the hieroglyphic of event and circumstance. 
In the great work of President Eliot of Harvard 
and of Dr. William T. Harris in the illumina- 
tion of educational ideals; or that of Kossuth 
and of Mazzini in their visions of liberty for 
Austria and for Italy ; in the work of Glad- 
stone when he espoused the despised cause of 
Home Rule regardless of self-interest ; in Lincoln's 
proclamation that emancipated the slave ; in that 
sublime heroism with which Lucy Stone, unaided 
and alone, set forth to achieve a larger life for 
womanhood ; when Rosa Bonheur interpreted 
the meaning of the luminous air pulsing with 
life ; when Millet discerned and portrayed the 
pathos and the power of labor; when Phillips 
Brooks preached the gospel of the absolute prac- 
ticality of divine ideals as the standard in every 
phase of daily experience ; when Tennyson and 
the Brownings, and every true poet, indeed, from 
the days of Homer to those of the Twentieth 
Century, have left their testimony to the one 
supreme truth that predetermines human life, 
the interpenetration of the Seen and the Unseen, 
— in all those illustrations we see the spiritual 
significance — 



The Spiritual Significance. 17 

"burn through 
the hieroglyphic of material shows." 

Circumstances are the hieroglyphic to be inter- 
preted. Events occur that bring gladness or 
sadness^ gain or loss. Sympathy, encourage- 
ment, and love are ours, or their reverse. 
The friend on vrhom we had relied proves in- 
different ; the anticipated sweetness of sympa- 
thetic intercourse is denied. Or, again, a joy 
unlooked for and undreamed of comes into 
life. After all, the value of each and any is in 
the interpretation. One is surprised and pained 
by meeting coldness or indifference where he 
had looked for response. Shall he not read the 
spiritual significance and look to the divine 
sources alone for unfailing comprehension ? Or 
generous love, undreamed of, comes, and shall 
he not accept it as a sign and seal of the 
life where the clearer vision will prevail and 
thereby the closer sympathy? He is deprived 
of his worldly goods. Shall he not read the 
significance as that which shall teach that his 
true life is independent of the things which he 
possesseth ? Or new gates open leading him 
to more lavish bestowal, and shall he not accept 



18 The Spiritual Significance. 

with this largess that of new and diviner 
responsibilities ? Through all these outer signs 
gleams the spiritual significance. 

The apostle has charged us to add to our 
faith virtue, and to our virtue knowledge. Man 
has now reached that degree of development 
where it is possible for him to enter on an in- 
creasingly larger grasp of the laws that govern 
his relation to the universe in which he finds 
himself, and to God ; he is, indeed, beginning to 
realize that certain phases of experience which 
have always heretofore been relegated to some 
vague and unknown hereafter are possible, here 
and now, in his present environment ; he recog- 
nizes that the soul has divine power and infinite 
potentiality ; that this power may manifest itself 
on any plane as soon as the higher nature has 
acquired the ascendency over the lower in a 
degree to enable it to live its own life and to 
dominate the physical organism which is the 
instrument, so to speak, of the spirit. One need 
not identify himself ^vith any organization of 
Oriental ethics to yet perceive that '^ the ancient 
wisdom," as set forth by theosophy, offers 
illumination upon the origin, nature, and destiny 



The Spiritual Significance, 19 

of the soul which is at once explanatory and 
evidential in its relation to the Christian religion. 
Annie Besant, whose admirable intellectual grasp 
of the great problems of life entitles her con- 
clusions to respect if not always to acceptance, 
has very clearly outlined the nature of man in 
the following paragraph which falls into entire 
harmony with the teachings of Saint Paul. The 
apostle characterizes man as a being composed 
of body, soul, and spirit. No careful student 
of the New Testament can fail to perceive 
that both Saint Paul and Jesus himself taught 
what they regarded as the more rudimentary 
phases of knowledge suited to the rudimentary 
comprehension of the age, and not encumbered 
with an elaboration of intricate principles which 
require a larger intellectual power to understand, 
as well as a higher faith to accept. " I have 
many things to say, but ye cannot bear them 
now," is one of the many passages which seem 
to support this hypothesis. Of the true nature 
of man in its completeness Annie Besant says : 

" Man's nature has seven aspects : it is composed 
of seven principles. The clearest and best way of all 
in which to think of man is to regard him as one, the 



20 The Spiritual Significance, 

Spirit or true Self ; this belongs to the highest re- 
gion of the universe, and is universal, the same for 
all. For this purpose of achieving individuality the 
spirit, or true self, is clothed in garment after gar- 
ment, each garment belonging to a definite region 
of the universe, and enabling the Self to come into 
contact with that region, gain knowledge of it, and 
work in it. It thus gains experience, and all its 
latent potentialities are gradually drawn out into 
active powers. Whatever words may be used, the 
fact remains the same, — that man is essentially 
seven-fold, an evolving being, part of whose nature 
has already been manifested, part remaining latent at 
present, so far as the vast majority of humankind are 
concerned. Man's consciousness is able to function 
through as many of these aspects as have been 
already evolved in him into activity. 

" This evolution, during the present cycle of human 
development, takes place on five out of the seven 
planes of nature. The two higher planes — the 
sixth and seventli — will not be reached, save in 
the most exceptional cases, by the men of this hu- 
manity in the present cycle, and they may therefore 
be left out of sight for our present purpose. 'A 
plane' is merely a condition, a stage, a state. To 
take an easily verified illustration : a man may be 



The Spiritual Significance, 21 

conscious on the physical plane, — that is, in his 
physical body, — feeling hunger and thirst, the pain 
of a blow or cut. But let the man be a soldier in 
the heat of battle, and his consciousness will be cen- 
tred in his passions and emotions, and he may suffer 
a wound without knowing it, his consciousness being 
away from the physical plane and acting on the plane 
of passions and emotions : when the excitement is 
over, consciousness will pass back to the physical, 
and he will feel the pain of his wound. Let the man 
be a philosopher, and as he ponders over some knotty 
problem he will lose all consciousness of bodily wants, 
of emotions, of love and hatred; his consciousness 
will have passed to the plane of intellect. Thus 
may a man live on these several planes, in these 
several conditions, one part or another of his nature 
being thrown into activity at any given time." 

The fundamental basis of the entire spiritual 
significance of life is that man is a spiritual 
being, immortal in nature, progressive by means 
of a perpetually increasing development of his 
latent povrers. These powers may unfold slowly 
or swiftly ; and just in proportion to any given de- 
gree of unfold ment will be his place, his surround- 
ings, his possibilities of achievement, — in short, 
all that we sum up under the name of success 



22 The Spiritual Significance, 

and happiness. " Every spirit builds its house," 
said Emerson. A man's world at any given mo- 
ment — all that constitutes his environment — 
is simply the manifestation of himself. As he 
changes, his outer world also changes, keeping 
the balance of an exact correspondence. The 
change we call death is, as Bishop Brooks so 
truly said, ^' not the end of life, but an event iu 
life." Now and here man is a spiritual being 
over whom this change of form and condition 
has no power, and who may so learn to under- 
stand his physical or denser body as an instru- 
ment in his own hands, that he will use it wisely, 
and dominate, rather than to be dominated, by 
it. This denser body is far less the prison-house 
of the true man than it is his instrument, to be 
used as a means of communication with the 
physical world, as a musician may use his in- 
strument to reach and sway the multitude. The 
spiritual energy that controls the hand to write 
is not the mere visible hand that holds the pen. 
The physical body is an exquisitely wrought or- 
ganism whose use is the temporary transmission 
of energy to act on the physical world. Con- 
versely, too, it is the means by which experi- 



The Spiritual Significance, 23 

mental knowledge of the physical universe is ob- 
tained by the spiritual being who is thus — for 
the time — clothed in it. Holding this truth in 
mind, it is not difficult to comprehend the possi- 
bility of telepathic communication between mind 
and mind, whether between those who are both 
in the physical world, or who have passed by 
the change we call death into the ethereal world, 
or between two of whom one is in the ethereal 
and one still in the physical world. Contem- 
plating life from the point of view of its spiritual 
significance, this varied play of communication 
becomes perfectly clear and easy of comprehen- 
sion. The leading thought of the day indorses 
this theory both from the point of spiritual dis- 
cernment and of scientific explanation. Bishop 
Samuel Fallows, of St. Paul's, Chicago, has re- 
cently said : — 

" Telepathy has been proved beyond the possibility 
of a doubt. It is no longer a theory ; it is a fact. 

" Before thought telegraphy lie limitless possibili- 
ties in sending messages to God and our fellow-men 
in all parts of the earth. I hail him as a benefactor 
of his race who will teach people how to use this 
tremendous psychic force." 



24 The Spiritual Significance, 

Sir William Crookes, in his president's address 
"before the British Association of Scientists in 
1898, discussed the subject of telepathy at some 
length and gave this lucid explanation : — 

"If telepathy take place, we have two physical 
facts, — the physical change in the brain of A, the 
suggestor, and the analogous physical change in the 
brain of B, the recipient of the suggestion. Between 
these two physical events there must exist a train of 
physical causes. 

" Such a sequence can only occur through an inter- 
vening medium. All the phenomena of the universe 
are presumably in some way continuous, and it is 
unscientific to call in the aid of mysterious agencies 
when with every fresh advance in knowledge it is 
shown that ether vibrations have powers and attri- 
butes abundantly equal to any demand, even to the 
transmission of thought. Rontgen has familiarized 
us with an order of vibrations of extreme minuteness, 
compared with the smallest waves with which we 
have hitherto been acquainted and of dimensions 
comparable with the distances between the centres of 
the atoms of which the material universe is built up, 
and there is no reason to suppose that we have here 
reached the limit of frequency. It is known that 
the action of thought is accompanied by certain 



The Spiritual Significance, 25 

molecular movements of the brain, and here we 
have physical vibrations capable from their extreme 
minuteness of acting direct as individual molecules 
while their rapidity approaches that of the internal 
and external movements of the atoms themselves. 

. . . The most varied proof, perhaps, is drawn from 
analysis of the sub-conscious workings of the mind, 
when those, whether by accident or design, are brought 
into conscious survey. Evidence of a region below 
the threshold of consciousness has been presented 
since its last inception in the ' Proceedings of the 
Society for Psychical Eesearch,' and its various 
aspects are being interpreted and welded into a com- 
prehensive whole by the pertinacious genius of 
F. W. H. Myers. Concurrently a knowledge of the 
facts in this obscure region has received valuable 
additions at the hands of laborers in other countries. 
To mention a few names out of many, Richet, Pierre 
Janet and Binet (in France), of Brener in Austria, 
William James of America, have strikingly illustrated 
the extent to which patient experimentation can 
prove subliminal processes, and can thus learn the 
lessons of alternating personalities and abnormal 
states. . . . 

" A formidable range of phenomena must be scien- 
tifically sifted before we effectually grasp a faculty so 



26 The Spiritual Significance, 

strange, so bewildering, and for ages so inscrutable as 
the action of mind on mind. This delicate task 
needs a vigorous employment of the method of 
exchisism — a constant setting aside of irrelevant 
phenomena that could be explained by human 
caiises — including those far too familiar causes, 
conscious and unconscious fraud. The science of our 
century has forged weapons of observation and 
analysis by which the veriest tyro may profit. 
Like the Souls in Plato's myth that follow the 
chariot of Zeus, it has ascended to a point of vision 
far above the earth. It is henceforth open to science 
to transcend all we now think we know of matter, 
and to gain new glimpses of a profounder scheme of 
cosmic law." 

These larger views of the profounder scheme 
of cosmic law form the w^onderful panorama 
opening before the world to-day. We are learn- 
ing to see that death is in no sense a gulf, but, 
instead, a gateway; and that when living the 
life of spiritual significance the being in or out 
of the physical body is a subordinate matter, 
which does not affect the flashing of messages 
between two who are on a similar spiritual 
plane. The mere fact of death does not neces- 
sarily exalt a man to the spiritual plane, nor 



The Spiritual Significance, 27 

does the fact that he is still clothed with the 
physical body necessarily limit his life to the 
plane of the physical senses. Man may, if he 
will, live here and now the life that he would 
live hereafter. In fact, the ultimate end and aim 
of all research regarding the nature and destiny 
of man and his relations to the Unseen is to 
refine and exalt and ennoble the quality of his 
daily life in the present. In this result lies the 
unerring test of the genuineness of his aspira- 
tion or his earnestness. The quality of his daily 
life, the degree of his thought, the habitual 
trend of his interest, the course of his life in its 
unconscious as well as in its conscious realm, 
— all these are the touchstones that register 
the plane of his spiritual consciousness. "If a 
man love not his brother whom he hath seen, 
how shall he love God whom he hath not 
seen ? " The question is a typical one, and 
relates itself, searchingly, to the daily experi- 
ences which are in themselves our Heaven or 
our Hades, our Time or our Eternity. When 
one can come into the profound realization 
that this year, this day, this hour, is Eternity ; 
that the Present is the " accepted time " and 



28 The Spiritual Significance. 

not some vague future, — then will lie have 
entered on the heavenly life, whether it be here 
or hereafter. 

Yet in this conduct of life there are perplexi- 
ties that beset us all. The work that one is 
endeavoring to do for the many is interrupted 
by demand from the one. The minister in his 
study, for instance, in one of the rare hours of 
inspiration and fervor, feeling the message of 
life given to him with exceptional power that 
he may transmit it to his people, is suddenly 
called to see the stranger who has just come 
to the city and wants " something to do." 
But what ? Of that there is no definite con- 
ception. The man believes he could be use- 
ful if employed in store or office, though for 
neither has he any special training ; the woman 
sees a possible future if she could be a private 
secretary, or a stenographer, or a copyist, — 
though for none of these has she apparently fit- 
ness nor experience. She is without friends or 
money. And the minister is not superhuman, 
that he can create for her conditions and 
ability to meet those conditions. "I heard 
your sermon last Sunday," she says, "and I 



The Spiritual Significance, 29 

wanted to thank you for it, and I felt that you 
could help me." Yet what can he do, — unless 
he could reconstruct her entire nature and pow- 
ers? Is it worth this interruption to the flow of 
his thoughts in the real work he was doing, — is 
it worth while that he should see and talk with 
her, and return baffled and perplexed, unable to 
pursue his own creative work with the ardor and 
exaltation that was his ? Yet this is a part of 
daily life. We are in this world of mixed and 
rudimentary conditions; of inharmonious forces 
and incongruous demands. This is the " world " 
in its very nature and essence, — the most trivial 
detail flinging itself into the sublimest duty ; the 
most exalted thought confronted by the most 
exacting and inconsequential demand ; and one 
must say to himself, " Here or nowhere is my 
kingdom." It is idle to dream of escaping. 
These interruptions, petty, if you will ; these de- 
mands, unjust, inconsequential, unreasonable, if 
you please ; these exactions of higher gifts for 
ordinary or baser uses, all this is life, — in this 
mortal part of its pilgrimage. What then ? 
Ah,— 

" Say not the struggle nought availeth." 



30 The Spiritual Significance. 

Say not that because of trivialities and incon- 
gruities life is not worth the living. For it is 
vv^orth the living, and all these inconsequential 
entanglements are the conditions out of which 
clearness and strength and nobler conceptions 
and exalted purposes are evolved. In some 
form or other each and all must either meet them 
or evade them. Now, to evade is not to escape 
but rather to postpone, for all the discipline 
appointed for each human soul must sometime 
and somewhere be met and transmuted into ex- 
perience. One must emerge from it either 
" crowned or slain," and if slain he must again 
face his ordeals, until he is the victor and 
not the vanquished. Life is a spiritual laby- 
rinth, and its successive experiences are as the 
mazes that succeed each other. But in the 
figurative sense as in the literal the clue is always 
to be found, and when found and followed it is 
unerring in its leading. The clue in the laby- 
rinth of life is the intelligent and unfaltering 
following of the Christ ideal. This clue, this 
illumination on his pathway, God gives to man. 
Now to follow Christ is not an abstract and in- 
comprehensible ideal of mysticism, but the most 



The Spiritual Significance, 31 

actual and practical fact in daily living. It is 
following Christ when the untimely and perhaps 
totally unreasonable interruption is met in the 
spirit of Jesus ; with His love, gentleness, and 
serenity. It is following Christ when one holds 
his high thought, keeps all his fervor and enthu- 
siasm and devotion despite misunderstanding, 
injustice, or undue exactions. It is living the 
life of eternity, the life of Paradise, the life of 
the spirit, when one can steer his course serenely 
and patiently, with an exaltation of spirit that is 
neither deflected nor corroded by the troubled 
conditions that surround it ; that can say of 
them, — these are the inevitable forms which the 
discipline of the moment takes ; these are the 
"gifts," in a kindergarten sense, by means of 
which the spiritual powers of gentleness, gen- 
erosity, serenity, faith, and love develop them- 
selves. One may well realize that all the condi- 
tions of this terrestrial pilgrimage are carefully 
graded; that they must, by an unerring spir- 
itual law, exactly correspond to the spiritual 
needs and adjust themselves to the stages of 
development. 

With this sure conviction the soul puts on its 



32 The Spiritual Significance. 

armor. It accepts hardships, injustice, difficul- 
ties, annoyances, as an invalid accepts the reme- 
dial agents for his restoration to health ; not 
agreeable in themselves, but valuable as means 
to an end. To realize man's relation to the 
Unseen is to acquire courage and clearness of 
vision. All these conditions are the means by 
which one works out his real life. This more 
real and significant life begins after leaving the 
physical world. We are here learning how to 
live, and he to whom discipline is most severe 
may be gaining the most, provided that he accept 
and not evade this discipline. The conditions of 
a man's life accompany and attend him wherever 
he may go. If he evade them in one form they 
arise in another. He cannot cross the ocean and 
leave them behind. They take their passage 
when he takes his, and they lie down with him 
at night and arise with him in the morning. 
Once overcome, they depart. Their work is done. 
As Plato says, — '* If the head and the body are 
to be well, you must begin by curing the soul." 

Fair thoughts and happy hours attend him 
who meets the vicissitudes of life with serenity 
and sweetness and generous faith. 



The Spiritual Significance, 33 

Emerson expresses a great truth in saying 
that "the inviolate soul is in perpetual tele- 
graphic communication with the source of events, 
has earlier information, a private despatch which 
relieves him of the terror that presses on the 
rest of community." The nature of this com- 
munication is now being made clear in the 
deeper and more universal knowledge of spirit- 
ual laws. The way in which the inviolate soul 
is in this perpetual communication is revealed 
when it is realized that man is an inhabitant 
of two worlds, and that he has constantly two 
phases of social companionship, — the one in the 
Seen, the other in the Unseen. He is compan- 
ioned by his friends whom he sees and hears, who 
are visible, audible, and tangible ; but not less, 
too, by the friends he does not see, — those 
whose words are not audible to the ear, but fall 
on an inner sense ; those not visible to the eye, 
but whose presence is perceived by the spiritual 
faculties. The time is not distant when these 
two classes of companionship will be universally 
recognized and the fact of their existence accepted 
as naturally and as simply as that of any other 
fact in daily life. Dr. Lyman Abbott points out 
3 



34 The Spiritual Significance, 

the successive and the progressive phases of the 
conceptions of God. The Jews first believed 
that God cared for them only ; then the con- 
ception became enlarged to include the Gen- 
tiles ; the Roman Catholics taught that God 
cared for the baptized alone ; Calvin, that He 
cared for some and did not care for others, ac- 
cording to His own choice, but that this choice 
was not conditioned by a man*s being Jew or 
Gentile, baptized or unbaptized ; then came John 
Wesley, who taught that God cared for the re- 
generated, the converted man : Channing, Bush- 
nell, and Phillips Brooks followed, teaching that 
God cares for all, for the baptized and the un- 
baptized, the converted and the unconverted, the 
good and the bad, and that His love is forever 
working, and that no man can separate himself 
from that love. " Our God is a communicating 
God," says Dr. Abbott. These fuller communi- 
cations are constantly being given to mankind. 
As man progresses by the larger unfoldment of 
his spiritual nature, he is thus able to receive 
more largely of the knowledge of divine laws. 

Dr. Abbott points out that intuition and vis- 
ion precede scientific discovery ; that the law 



The Spiritual Significance. 35 

of evolution was taught by the poets before it 
was formulated by Darwin. Equally true it is 
that the fact of communication between those in 
the Seen and the Unseen was thus perceived by 
the seer and the poet before it was absolutely 
demonstrated by scientific research. 

The great value of this communication lies in the 
knowledge thus gained of the nature of life ; not 
merely the experiences or the conditions after 
death, but rather of the nature of life in its com- 
pleteness and in the relation of the present to the 
future. The highest achievement is this culture 
and development of spirituality. The term im- 
plies the entire intellectual nature, the complete 
man in all that relates to purpose, energy, and 
achievement. Life is a matter of evolution. 
"The point is not so much shall a man live," 
says a well-known writer, " as can the man live 
any longer in the higher levels of existence into 
which humanity must at last evolve? Has he 
qualified himself by the cultivation of the endur- 
ing part of his nature ? If not, he has got to 
the end of his tether. The destiny which must 
befall him is annihilation, — not necessarily suf- 
fering in a conscious existence, but that dissolu- 



36 The Spiritual Significance. 

tion which must befall the soul which has wholly 
assimilated itself to matter." 

Now, if the inviolate soul is in perpetual tele- 
graphic communion with the source of events ; 
if the spiritual man, so to speak, lives in the 
spiritual world, even while still in the physical 
body, and is in communion with those that 
dwell in that world, — if all this is true, it throws 
an illumination on all one's daily experiences, 
now and here. It is the greatest stimulus, the 
greatest incentive, to live the life of the spirit, 
which is love and joy and peace. The realiza- 
tion of this evolutionary progress makes at once 
the conditions in which one may achieve it more 
entirely, and may intelligently control his destiny. 

The records of history are full of these in- 
stances of personal communication with those in 
the Unseen. The legends of Katherine of Siena 
are among the most striking of these ; and how- 
ever mythical they may have seemed they be- 
come informed with life and vitality on visiting 
that unique Italian city that is the scene of her 
nativity and earlier religious experiences. In 
southern Tnscany between the Apennines and 
the sea some fifty miles west of Florence, lies 



The Spiritual Significance. 37 

Siena built on three hills, with streets so narrow 
and steep that on many of them no horse can 
proceed, as they are more like stone stairways. 
Siena is purely mediaeval. It is a walled city 
whose buildings are limited absolutely to the 
space within the walls, outside of which the 
country stretches away with no hint of suburban 
dwellings. In the fourteenth century Siena was 
the successful rival of Florence, but while the 
latter city progressed Siena remained unchanged, 
and journeying to it from Florence, one leaves 
the twentieth century behind him and exchanges 
it for the middle of the fourteenth. Siena is a 
most important town for art study. It is here 
alone that the frescoes of Sodoma can be seen 
with any degree of completeness, and the Sienese 
school of painting can be studied chronologically 
in the galleries. The paintings and carvings in 
the Palazzo Pubblico and the Cathedral, and the 
pictures and sculptures in the belle arti are 
rich in charm, but the special point of pilgrimage 
to Siena will always be the home and haunts 
of Saint Katherine ; the house where she lived 
in the Contrada d'Oca, and the Church of St. 
Domenico where she prayed and saw visions, 



38 The Spiritual Significance. 

are invested with a passionate interest to all 
who are drawn to study the development of the 
spirituality of life. The history of Katherine of 
Siena is made vivid and tangible by a visit to 
her native city. Every tale that might have 
seemed legendary and mythical is illustrated by 
its own objects and scenery, and — in the in- 
creasingly large revelation of the divine laws 
now given to humanity — it is not difficult to 
trace the identity of operation between that age 
and this. For instance, when Katherine relates 
to her confessor that the divine counsel "was 
not given in those very words," but that the 
Lord made her understand certain things, — 
we find the exact counterpart of that which in 
the present day we know as telepathy. The 
narration shows this same relation of spirit to 
spirit which permits the current of thought to 
flash from one mind to another. John Adding- 
ton Symonds rationalizes the history of Katherine 
and says : — 

" The supernatural element in the life of Saint 
Katherine may he explained partly by the mytho- 
logizing adoration of the people ready to find a 
miracle in every act of her they worshipped and 



The Spiritual Significance, 39 

partly by her temperament and mode of life. ... It 
is related that she took but little sleep, scarcely more 
than two hours at night, and that, too, on the bare 
floor ; she ate only vegetables and the sacred wafer 
of the host. This diet depressed her physical forces, 
and her nervous system was thrown into a state of 
the highest exaltation. Thoughts became things 
and ideas were projected from her vivid fancy upon 
the empty air about her." 

Mr. Symonds wrote this paragraph in 1882. 
In the light of psychic science to-day a very 
different interpretation will be made. The phys- 
ical body is the barrier between the spiritual 
man and the inhabitants of the unseen realm that 
surrounds us as an atmosphere. It is possible 
to so render it subservient to the psychic body as 
to admit of the open communion between those 
in the Seen and in the Unseen while in perfect 
and abounding health. This, indeed, is the 
higher condition, and is that in which the phys- 
ical body is seen in its true aspect, as an instru- 
ment which is the better for being in perfect re- 
pair and capable of performing anything required 
of it. This abounding energy — which is the 
perfection of energy — is far more a mental and a 



40 The Spiritual Significance. 

moral than it is a physical condition. A man is 
not made strong by meat or wine, or by this 
thing or that ; but by the way in which he per- 
mits the psychic self to take command and 
manifest its infinite and irresistible energy through 
the physical organism. This condition in its 
perfection is perfect health. It is the art of so 
regulating physical hygiene in diet, sleep, exer- 
cise, and baths as to keep the physical body 
plastic, responsive, and subservient to the spiritual 
forces. When this result is obtained by the 
abnormal means of undue fasting, vigils, and 
hardships, as employed by Katherine, it effaces 
the physical barrier largely ; and, instead of using 
it as an instrument (which is the appointed and 
normal way while in this life), it allows the 
spirit to transcend it to a greater or less degree, 
and thus place itself in the open communion 
with the Unseen world in an abnormal rather 
than in a normal manner. The matter of food, 
for instance, has two sides. Those who take it 
in the sense of mere physical appetites and 
enjoyment inevitably sink to tlie material plane, 
and if this were the only alternative, fasting and 
vigils were needed. But when food is taken to 



The Spiritual Significance, 41 

supply the normal needs of the physical life, as a 
piano is tuned that the player may be able to 
produce the greater harmony, it is then a source 
of power contributing to the normal, easy, and 
joyous manifestation of spiritual energy, which 
is seen in perfect health and equipoise, in intel- 
lectual activity and power, and in spiritual 
exaltation. 

In the age of Katharine of Siena the cruci- 
fixion of the physical powers was the spiritual 
ideal : in the present age the fine balance of the 
physical to be used as an instrumental power is 
seen to be the nobler standard. 

Mrs. Butler, in her biography of this marvel- 
lous woman, says : — 

" The divine guide of Katherine of Siena charged 
her to mix with her brothers and sisters in this 
earthly exile. ^Remain with them, and I will be 
with thee,' was the message. Katherine so inclined 
to solitude that to her mind such a step appeared 
grave, as exchanging a life of perpetual prayer for 
one of dangerous and worldly interests and occupa- 
tions. 'Wherein have I offended Thee, my God,' 
she cried, ^ that thou dost send me from Thee 1 It 
is not by bread alone that man lives. Are not the 



42 The Spiritual Significance, 

words that proceed from Thee far better to impart 
energy to the soul ? Thou knovvest that I fled from 
the society of men that I might find Thee, my Lord 
and my God. And must I now mingle anew in 
worldly affairs to fall again into my former worldli- 
ness and stupidity, — and perhaps offend against 
Thee]^ Then the Lord answered her. The answer, 
as she told her confessor, *was not given in these 
very words, but these,' she said, 'are the things 
which He made me understand as the expression of 
His will concerning me.' The counsel as expressed 
in words was as follows : — 

" ' Be calm, my child ; thou must accomplish all 
justice that My grace may become fruitful in thee 
and in others. I desire not that thou shouldst be 
separated from Me ; on the contrary, I desire that 
thou shouldst become more closely united to Me 
by charity towards thy fellow-creatures. Thou 
knowest that love has two commandments, to love 
Me and to love thy neighbor. I desire that thou 
shouldst walk not on one, but on two feet, and 
fly to heaven on two wings.' " 

That Katherine of Siena in her brief life of 
thirty-three years — between 1347 and 1380 — 
had this open communion with the unseen world 



The Spiritual Significance, 43 

in telepathic intercourse, in clairvoyance, and 
clairaudience, there can be no more doubt than 
of any other historic and authentic chain of 
facts. "Thoughts became things," — not because, 
as Mr. Symonds says, they were "fancies pro- 
jected on the empty air," but because, as in 
this age we have learned to know, thouglits are 
things ; because thought is the most substantial 
reality in the universe, and is the substance, in- 
deed, of which the universe is made. 

On a hill in the western part of Siena stands 
the strange, old church of St. Domenico, the 
scene of the devotions of Katherine. In a little 
valley near known as the Contrada d'Oca, is her 
father's house, over the door of which is inscribed 
in golden letters the words, "Sposse Christi 
Katherinse domus." The rooms are now made 
into a series of chapels, but there are preserved 
various relics, among which is the lantern that 
she carried when visiting the poor in her minis- 
trations. That this woman, born in the hum- 
blest walks of life, should at the age of thirteen 
have been admitted to the Dominican order; 
that she should address and calm infuriated 
mobs, execute diplomatic negotiations, reform the 



44 The Spiritual Significance. 

republic of Florence, correspond and give the 
wisest counsel to queens and kings and popes; 
that by her eloquence, her ardor, and her mar- 
vellous personal power she should have induced 
Gregory XL to leave Avignon and return to 
Rome and reconstruct the church; that, strong 
in divine authority, she should rebuke cardinals, 
princes, and monarchs ; that she wisely solved the 
intricate political problems of Italy ; that the 
people crowded about her in thousands whenever 
she appeared, and that multitudes became ani- 
mated with holy zeal from the force of her ap- 
peals ; that her own life was that of a passionate 
exaltation and purity and holy love, — what ex- 
planation can there be of such a life as this that 
has left its determining impress on all the ages to 
come, but that it was a life in closest and per- 
petual communion with the divine ? Kath- 
erine's prayer, still used in Siena, is as follows : 

" Spirito Santo, Delta eterna Cristo Amore ! 
vieni nel mio cuore ; per la tua potenza trallo a te, 
mio Dio, e concedemi carita con timore. Liberami, 
Amore inefFabile, da ogni roal pensiero ; riscaldami 
ed infiammami del tuo dolcissimo amore, sicclie ogni 
pena mi sembri leggiera. Santa mio Padre e doles 



The Spiritual Significance. 45 

mio Signore, ora aiutami in ogni mio ministero 
Cristo Amore ! Cristo Amore ! " 

In any study of the spiritual significance of 
life the immediate problem, however, is that of 
achievement. 

" The French have a proverb," observes Emerson, 
" to the effect that not the day only, but all things 
have their morning, — ' II n^y a que le matin en toutes 
choses.^ And it is a primal rule to defend your morn- 
ing, to keep all its dews on, and with fine foresight 
to relieve it from any jangle of affairs, even from the 
question, Which task? I remember a capital pru- 
dence of old President Quincy, m4io told me that he 
never went to bed at night until he had laid out the 
studies for the next morning. I believe that in our 
good days a well-ordered mind has a new thought 
awaiting it every morning. And hence, eminently 
thoughtful men, from the time of Pythagoras down, 
have insisted on an hour of solitude every day to 
meet their own mind and learn what oracle it has to 
impart." 

The problem of achievement is not in length- 
ening time, but in keeping one's self up to the 
mark in using the time there is. " Life is un- 
necessarily long," said Emerson; and one who 



46 The Spiritual Significance, 

reflects upon the relations between time and 
accomplishment must realize that achievement 
is concerned with quality rather than quantity. 
An hour may often do the work of a week or a 
year. A flash of insight is worth a year's efibrts. 
But just how to live, physically, mentally, and 
spiritually, so as to be in swift and perpetual re- 
sponse to the inspiration in the air is a question 
that under one form or another is constantly 
before the world. Various factions give various 
answers. It is approached from the side of 
hygiene ; and formulas for diet, exercise, and 
physical observances in general are numerous and 
not unfrequently valuable. It is approached 
from other points of view with both sense and 
nonsense. Yet of one thing may we not always 
be sure, and regarding it may we not all agree, 
— that primarily and fundamentally man lives 
from spiritual force, and that to just the degree 
that he thus lives from spiritual energy, to that 
degree w^ll he stamp each hour with the force of 
achievement ? 

There is nothing so absolutely practical as the 
life of the spirit which is a condition of serenity 
and of aspiration. It is not a matter of religious 



The Spiritual Significance. 47 

ceremony, although it may be constantly re- 
newed and refreshed by rite and ceremony. It 
is not a life detached from the world, isolated 
from the great currents of human endeavor, but, 
instead, one that concerns itself in every endeavor 
for the benefit of man. The spirit is not some- 
thing apart from the individual, but is his essen- 
tial self and his body is the instrument. Just 
here do we not begin to gain light on this vexed 
problem ? The hygienic counsel to keep this in- 
strument in order is most essential. While no 
absolute general rules can be laid down as appli- 
cable to every one, yet each person may soon 
discover for himself the particular regimen of 
food, exercise, and other physical observances 
that serves as the best means to the end. All 
this is important, and still it is only the care of 
the instrument, — not of the man himself. It is 
important, as the writer's care of his pen, his 
choice of ink and- paper, are important to the 
result ; as a painter's choice and care of his can- 
vas and brushes is an indispensable detail in the 
accomplishment of his work ; as the tuning of 
the piano is important, even to a Paderewski ; 
but always may one clearly distinguish between 



48 The Spiritual Significance. 

his instrument and himself. Still, as the perfec- 
tion of the piano does not insure the perfection 
of the player ; as the best of canvas and colors 
do not themselves produce a picture ; as pens 
and ink alone by no means create literature, 
so, too, with the individual. To keep his phys- 
ical body in perfect condition to accomplish cer- 
tain results is only one detail in the complete 
achievement. 

As man is, primarily, a spiritual being, and 
only secondarily a physical being ; as he is pri- 
marily and permanently an inhabitant of the 
spiritual world, and only incidentally and tran- 
siently of the physical world, it seems clear that 
his strength for achievement must be drawn from 
the spiritual side, and that it is to this realm he 
must turn for all renewal and re-enforcement. 
Only so far as he relates himself to the Divine 
and receives of the divine energy is he calculated 
to achieve his purposes. This relation is eflPected 
through every uplifting of the heart to God, — 
in prayer, in aspiration, in thought, in love. By 
every means, that joins the spiritual being, dwell- 
ing here in a physical world, with the forces 
and inspirations of the spiritual world, does he 



The Spiritual Significance, 49 

receive strength and power. All life is spiritual 
life; it is merely a question of degree. Even 
matter is spirit in the cruder and lower stages. 
The scientists have satisfied themselves that 
there is but one substance ; and that all things 
are simply various forms, different manifestations 
of higher or lower degrees. The affirmation that 
" man is a spirit " is true ; but the assertion that 
" man is as much a spirit as he will ever be " is 
not true, as his nature is formed for development 
and progress, and the finer and nobler grows his 
life, the more he has achieved of the spiritual. 
It is all a matter of discrete degrees. 

Of all others the morning hours seem to be 
most fitted for the spiritual uplifting. A little 
time consecrated to aspiration and prayer exalts 
and transforms the entire day and all its train 
of events. Gaining this energy, one thereby 
receives of the infinite power, that transcends 
all conditions in its instant power to annul or 
to re-create them. 

There seems to be a curiously erroneous con- 
ception as to what constitutes spirituality, and it 
is not infrequently supposed to be passivity and 
negation rather than purpose and positive energy. 
4 



50 The Spiritual Significance, 

An amiable person who drifts harmlessly in life ; 
who lives in the constant attitude of accepting 
God's will ; who is resigned, so to speak, and 
regards resignation as a moral virtue, — of such 
an one his friends often remark that, although 
he contributes little to the progress of others or 
himself, he is yet a person " of great spirituality." 
Now while these virtues may, and certainly 
do, enter into the spiritualization of life, they 
cannot alone represent that achievement, nor 
constitute it. 

Spirituality is force. It is the most potent, 
the most resistless, the most all-conquering force 
in the universe. It is executive and creative. 
It does something. It achieves and accom- 
plishes. Its achievement may be seen in many 
various directions. It may take the form of 
such work for humanity as that of religious 
ministry, of educational reform, of endeavor to 
embody new ideas in the social order ; or build- 
ing a railroad across the continent, inventing the 
ocean cable, or working out the problem of 
wireless telegraphy. In any event, spirituality 
includes spiritual energy, which is force, and 
which manifests itself as power. 



The Spiritual Significance. 51 

It is not enough to pray that the kingdom of 
heaven may come. There is something to do to 
contribute to this result. The kingdom of 
heaven is to be built up out of hope and belief 
and endeavor and love. It is not to be bought, 
but to be made. It may begin in one's own 
room, — even in one's own mind. It must begin 
there if it is to work outwardly. It manifests 
itself in a home, in a community. It manifests 
itself in a man's own life. 

Nor is this manifestation seen in " a calm and 
indolent ease." It is seen both in achievement 
and in creating conditions for achievement. It 
is seldom that the work one desires to do can 
be found ; it must be made. Vacant places do 
not wait for some one to discover them ; they 
are created out of new combinations of circum- 
stances and conditions by the power of spiritual 
euergy. 

This creation, however, is by no means that of 
outward inquiry or visible seeking. Its work 
lies far deeper, and consists in an understanding 
of the law. All life is twofold: it has its 
ethereal and its physical side. Before any pur- 
pose or plan is precipitated into the outer and 



52 The Spiritual Significance. 

objective world, it must be controlled, shaped, 
determined, in the ethereal world. All this 
subtle atmosphere is plastic, and the spiritual 
energy can create the very conditions favorable 
/ for the fulfilment of the purpose. One may sit 
down alone in the peace and exhilaration of his 
nobler purposes and aspirations and proceed to 
formulate his thought. He may see, in this 
inner atmosphere, the specific work that he 
wishes to do ; the journey he desires to make ; 
the house that he will build, or the friend with 
whom he would have companionship ; any ideal 
in the line of achievement or of surroundings 
that he longs to realize in outward living ; and 
if he know the law he may so stamp this purpose 
on the plastic atmosphere that it takes form 
and substance in the outer world as an inevit- 
able result. One can thus create for himself 
a place in which to work ; he can draw to him- 
self the thought and power to insure successful 
realization in any line he desires if he know 
how to draw on this spiritual energy. 

For the most part this intense and all-conquer- 
ing force lies latent in a majority of people ; 
they carry it about as a man might carry an 



The Spiritual Significance, 63 

unopened box of food while he was starving. 
Spiritual energy is an infinite force ; the more it 
is drawn upon, the larger is the supply, and it is 
given to man to use and to use now and here. 
It is his birthright. Spirituality of life lies in 
recognizing and using this exhaustless force to 
create the conditions in which one may be the 
most useful to others, and in which he shall find 
the greatest happiness and harmony for himself. 

Charbonnel's expression for this great truth is 
that man must arouse his conscience. But there 
must be a recognition also of the absolute 
practical law by means of which man can enter 
on that work and place which is his ; by means 
of which he may magnetize the conditions that 
are for him alone. It makes little difference as 
to what is the outward sign. Let one take any 
opening and develop it. Living truly, in aspira- 
tion and in prayer, he will find an increasing 
ability to draw on this infinite fund of power, 
and to transmute all the nebulous desires of 
his life into brilliant and clear achievement. 

No one who is watching with intelligent 
interest the wonderful panorama of contempo- 
rary life can fail to discern that the time has 



54 The Spiritual Significance. 

arrived when a larger philosophy, a higher illumi- 
nation, a truer comprehension, is to do for Chris- 
tianity what Jesus did for Judaism. This larger 
philosophy of life does not come to destroy, but 
to fulfil. M. Sabatier has stated recently that 
no one thing is more needed than a restatement 
of Christianity. He feels that the Christian idea 
in its fulness and intense hold is diminishing. 
How meet this difficulty, questions another 
writer, but by the restatement in modern terms, 
with reference to modern needs, of the gospel of 
Christ ? That able book by Principal Caird 
entitled "The Fundamental Idea of Christ," 
concerns itself with this problem, and offers to 
it a contribution valuable in its range of sug- 
gestive insight and its intellectual sincerity. 

There can be no question but that the great 
demand of the day is a larger grasp of the truth 
regarding the relations between God and man. 
The Incarnation was but to teach the way, the 
truth, and the life, yet so overlaid has it been 
with theological controversy that the sublime 
lesson itself has been obscured and not infre- 
quently totally eclipsed to the vision of man. 
The ablest thought of the day is engaged with 



The Spiritual Significance, 55 

this problem, and its solution is to lie — does 
lie — in an increasing mass of testimony and of 
evidence impossible to doubt, that of the modern 
revelation of spiritual truth which reveals the 
nature of the relation between man and God 
and between the physical and the spiritual 
worlds. This revelation is coming to us in the 
guise of actual and demonstrable facts ; in evi- 
dence that would bear its due weight to all 
intelligent minds in any other connection, and 
should not the less in this trend of inquiry. 
Well has it been said : — 

" We would take the old forms and spiritualize 
their meaning, and infuse into them new life. Ees- 
urrection rather than abolition is what we desire. 
We say again that we do not abolish one jot or one 
tittle of the teaching which the Christ gave to the 
world. We do but wipe away man's material glosses 
and show you the hidden spiritual meaning which he 
has missed. We strive to raise you in your daily life 
more and more from the dominion of the body, and 
to show you more and more of the mystic symbolism 
with which spirit life is permeated. They take but 
a shallow view of our teachings who pin themselves 
to the letter. We would raise you from the life of 



56 The Spiritual Significance. 

the body to that which shall be to you the fit ap- 
proach to the state disembodied. There is but a 
glimpse possible as yet; but the time will come 
when you will be able to see, as we cannot explain to 
you in your present state, the true dignity of man's 
higher life even on the earth sphere, and the hidden 
mysteries with which that life is teeming." 

The entire Christian faith has rested on the 
single fact that Jesus rose from the dead. If 
this were not true, argued Saint Paul, then are 
we of all men most miserable. There is un- 
questionable testimony that after the physical 
death on the cross Jesus walked and talked with 
His disciples ; that on more than one occasion, 
" the doors being shut, He stood in the midst of 
them." Yet He was a man like unto men of 
to-day. If He was recognized on earth again 
after He had passed through the change called 
death, so can they be. The analogy is sup- 
ported by an unbroken chain of evidence. Sci- 
ence, in the late discoveries of the nature of the 
ether and the power of the Rontgen ray, has es- 
tablished the actuality of conditions that permit 
the appearance and approach of those in the 
ethereal world to those in the physical world. 



The Spiritual Significance, 57 

On this truth, then, is the basis for the entire 
reorganization of the Christian faith. The rec- 
ognition of the interpenetration of the two 
worlds of the Seen and the Unseen changes all 
the conditions of living. It gives to all mankind 
a clearer faith and an abiding joy. It redeems 
despair to courage ; it transforms inertia to en- 
ergy, for hope is the spring of action always, and 
without a living hope and an intelligent faith, 
life is meaningless. 

The establishment of immortality as a practi- 
cal and evidential fact in the sense of absolute 
personal identity, the establishment of the actual 
and literal truth that death is merely a change 
of form and not of individuality, is an arresting 
epoch in human progress. But the significance 
of this is not merely in the comfort it brings to 
sorrow, but its larger significance is in that it so 
relates itself to conduct as to introduce the most 
potent forces to make for morality that mankind 
has ever known. It is to unveil " the true dig- 
nity of man's life, even on the earth sphere, and 
the hidden mysteries with which that life is 
teeming." 

The test of immortality is the present and im- 



58 The Spiritual Significance. 

mediate sense of oneness with God. ^' The re- 
formers who have really done the work have 
been those who have dared to call their work a 
work of God," said Bishop Brooks. Not only the 
reformers but every individual who lives his life 
nobly, is one who looks with reverence and trust 
and the consecration of faith to the divine guid- 
ance and the divine ideal. When Jesus said, 
" I am the vine, ye are the branches," he illus- 
trated a simple fact as demonstrable as a problem 
in mathematics or an experiment in physics. 
What would become of the branches of a tree that 
should assert : " We are the tree ; see our luxu- 
riant foliage, our beauty, our helpful shade from 
the heat. We will release ourselves entirely 
from the trunk and roots, which are of no con- 
sequence." And so the separation is effected, 
and in a day the once life-giving and luxuriant 
branches lie withered and dead. That man is 
akin to God ; that he is a part of the divine life ; 
that he is an immortal and potentially a divine 
being, is so true that no one can fully live, in 
the best expression of existence, until he realizes 
this profound truth and lives from this noble 
conception of himself. His true power for 



The Spiritual Significance. 59 

achievement and for the infinite development of 
spirit is gained just in proportion as he relates 
himself more and more closely to God ; as he 
realizes more completely the divine goodness 
and power, and draws on this through prayer 
and uplifting of spirit for his own work and life. 

It is sometimes said by persons who have not 
yet grasped the spiritual philosophy in its whole- 
ness, that if they believed in the presence and 
the incidental aid of friends in the Unseen, they 
would not, therefore, believe in the Divine 
Power. Might it not as truly be suggested that 
if a child in a large family believed in the help 
and counsel of his brothers and sisters, that he 
must, therefore, deny the existence of his father 
and mother ? The one case has about the same 
sequence of relation, or, rather, the lack of any 
conceivable sequence, as the other. Or it is as 
if the members of a church should assert that 
because they believed in the mutual helpful in- 
tercourse and companionship and sympathy of 
one another, they must therefore deny that their 
pastor could help them, or, indeed, that he ex- 
isted. The reductio ad absurdum is at once seen. 

"Ah, you little know what power you neglect 



60 The Spiritual Significance. 

when you omit to foster, by perpetual prayer, 
communion with the spirits, holy, pure, and 
good, who are ready to stand by and assist you," 
says one of divine authority. '^ Praise which 
attunes the soul to God and prayer which moves 
the spirit agencies, — these are engines ever 
ready to man's service." The consecrated life is 
the only possible life of unfailing energy. It is 
physical health as well as sustained mental 
power. The religion of spiritual philosophy is 
the complete renewal and uplifting of body and 
soul. It is pure, it is progressive : it is religion 
in its practical application. As the world of 
grown up men and women are the natural 
leaders and teachers and helpers of the world 
of children, so are the friends in the Un- 
seen the natural aid of those in the Seen. 
The saving truth in this is to realize that the 
event of death works no miracle to transform 
the individual: that the unworthy man here 
to-day is not an angel to-morrow simply because 
he dies ; that conditions are as varied and mixed 
on the plane just beyond as they are here ; that 
the discrimination between the good and the 
bad must always exist, and that the only power 



The Spiritual Significance, 61 

by which this discrimination may be exercised is 
the constant renewal of the spirit from God by 
means of prayer. People suggest being afraid 
of corrupt influences from the Unseen. Is not 
one also afraid of corrupt influences here ? And 
is it not one's own fault if his companionships 
and the influences he calls about him, here or 
beyond, are unworthy and debasing ? 

As a matter of actual truth, there is un- 
dreamed-of aid for all of us close at hand, 
awaiting our recognition, for only through in- 
telligent recognition can it be fully given. In 
one city even Jesus did no mighty work be- 
cause of its unbelief. The lack of belief, of 
perception, of recognition makes impossible con- 
ditions for those of our friends in the Unseen, 
just as it does for associations and friendships in 
this world. This infinite host of reinforcement, 
— the unseen friends ready to assist with new 
energy, new enlightenment, new inspiration, — 
this host is at hand. It is always ready. Man 
is individual and works out his own destiny. 
But as we receive helpful suggestions and coun- 
sel and impulse in this world from one another 
without in any sense losing our individuality and 



62 The Spiritual Significance. 

power of will, so may we from our friends in the 
life beyond. If it did not make one '^ a mere ma- 
chine " to receive counsel and sympathetic sug- 
gestion from Phillips Brooks, for instance, when 
he was in this world, why should it now that 
he is in a world just beyond? Let every 
man call his work " a work of God." Let him 
lay hold on every appointed means of aid and 
counsel and enlightenment and leading from the 
Divine Power, who uses His messengers and 
helpers in varied ways to teach and to uplift 
humanity. 

The initial step to making the entire life a 
work of God is the faithful fulfilment of each 
present duty, the hourly sacrifice of the lower to 
the higher. No more practical counsel was ever 
given than that which George Eliot describes 
Savonarola as giving to Romola when she sets 
forth to desert Florence : — 

" The higher life begins for us, my daughter, when 
we renounce our own will to bow before a divine 
law. That seems hard to you. It is the portal of 
wisdom and freedom and blessedness. And the 
symbol of it hangs before you. That wisdom is the 
religion of the cross. 



The Spiritual Significance, 63 

..." Every bond of your life is a debt : the 
right lies in the payment of that debt. It can lie 
nowhere else. In vain will you wander over the 
earth : you will be wandering forever away from 
the right. 

" You are seeking your own will, my daughter. 
You are seeking some good other than the law you 
are bound to obey. But how will you find good ? 
It is not a thing of choice ; it is a river that flows 
from the foot of the Invisible Throne, and flows by 
the path of obedience. I say again, man cannot 
choose his duties. You may choose to forsake your 
duties, and choose not to have the sorrow they bring. 
But you will go forth ; and what will you find, my 
daughter 1 Sorrow without duty, — bitter herbs, and 
no bread with them." 

There can be no more immediately important 
decision in the conduct of life, nor one more ab- 
solutely essential to progress, than the resolution 
to meet and to fulfil, never to evade, obligations. 
Emerson somewhere tersely says, "Pay every 
debt as you go," and again in a couplet he 
offers the same counsel : — 

" Wouldst thou seal up the avenues of ill ? 
Pay every debt, as if God wrote the bill." 



64 The Spiritual Significance. 

Of course all this high couusel, both in the 
admonition of Savonarola to Romola as con- 
ceived by George Eliot in her wonderful ro- 
mance of Florence, and the counsel of Emerson 
which in a few words condenses the wisdom of 
volumes ; the wisdom of the ages, indeed, — of 
course this all refers to something quite larger 
and more significant than debts of a financial 
nature. Transcending these, it, of course, in- 
cludes obligations of finance, and to meet every 
claim of this nature is simply a factor in the 
very basis of character, the very foundation of 
all things. To pay one's bills promptly and 
fully, never to allow one's finances to sink into 
entanglement, is certainly a part of the integ- 
rity of character, and without integrity and re- 
liability as a basis of character, there can be no 
spiritual progress. But while including these 
obligations of daily living which so determine 
one's relations with others, there is an infinite 
world beyond of obligations not less but more 
potent, because they pertain to the realm of 
spiritual order, and are discerned by mental illu- 
mination rather than enforced by visible record. 

One finds himself in a framework of circum- 



The Spiritual Significance, 65 

stances. They may be irksome. They may be 
full of irritation and trial. They may be circum- 
stances that seem almost like an imprisonment 
from which he cannot emerge. A young man 
finds himself, it may be, with invalid or aged 
parents dependent upon his exertions. He 
looks out into the world and sees the arena he 
longs to enter ; the university for study; the busi- 
ness world in which he would take an active 
part; a thousand vistas and voices beckon to 
him, and he longs to be free to follow and to an- 
swer them. Or, again, one finds himself in a cer- 
tain line of work which presents itself as drudg- 
ery rather than duty even ; he looks out into an 
indefinite future and sees no end, no probable 
change, and the burden is upon him. Or 
some social or domestic relations, unfortunate 
entanglements in one way or another, have 
caught him in their strands, and have become 
a hindrance or a burden. All these, and a thou- 
sand other typical instances which will readily 
occur to the reader, abound in human life. 
What then ? 

" Wouldst thou seal up the avenues of ill ? 
Pay every debt, as if God wrote the bill." 
5 



66 The Spiritual Significance, 

These circumstances are the debt that one has 
somewhere and some way incurred. The soul, 
in its pilgrimage through successive lives, has, 
by its failures, its mistakes, its errors, produced 
more or less of circumstances that are variously 
trying. If somewhere and sometime we have 
wronged another; if sometime in our past we 
have failed in generosity, in tenderness, in jus- 
tice or in love, the reaction in producing circum- 
stances of trial or limitation for ourselves is 
sure. It is the moral law, ^' Whatsoever a man 
soweth, that shall he also reap." It is not retri- 
bution in the sense of gratuitous punishment ; 
it is the logical and inevitable result of given 
causes. If one puts his hand in the fire, he 
is burned. The flame does not burn the hand 
as an arbitrary punishment, but as an inevitable 
result, of which the cause lies in one's own 
action. 

The Oriental philosophy has taught that a suc- 
cession of lifetimes was accomplished by means 
of successive reincarnations in this world. This 
theory is merely that up to a certain degree of 
spiritual development, the soul uses successive 
physical bodies on earth, but this applies only to 



The Spiritual Significance. 67 

the more rudimentary phases. The Oriental phi- 
losophy holds vast storehouses of spiritual treas- 
ure ; but it is rather as ore to be cast in the 
new and finer forms of thought, according to the 
higher illumination given by Jesus, than it is to 
be accepted in its mass, and with the cruder 
ideas of antiquity. For the world moves on- 
ward, and thought " widens with the progress 
of the suns." 

The truth of successive lives, each with a 
definite beginning and ending, is one apparent 
to every student of spiritual progress. But that 
the period of infancy and childhood, in precisely 
the sense in which we see these periods in our 
present life, are to be repeated, seems inconsist- 
ent with the great law of evolution. As for 
" reincarnation," all persons who live deeply and 
swiftly are ^"^ reincarnated," in a certain sense, 
many times in this present life. All persons 
who realize successive states of life, each entirely 
different while also a logical evolutionary result 
of the preceding state, are, in a sense, reincar- 
nated again. We see the same man under 
totally different circumstances ; and, indeed, as 
the physiologists assure us that every component 



68 The Spiritual Significance. 

atom of the human body is renewed every seven 
years, each new environment has, to a greater 
or less extent, a new body for the spiritual being 
who tenants it. 

Death comes as an event by means of which 
the physical envelope is cast off, and a succes- 
sion of finer and higher lives under successive 
higher and more significant conditions begin. In 
all this ascending series the divine law prevails, 
and to it the spirit is held amenable. The prog- 
ress must be toward justice, truth, generosity, 
and love* If one fails in these, he thereby con- 
structs circumstances that recur in which he 
must learn his lesson over again. '^ The higher 
life begins for us when we renounce our own 
will to bow before a divine law." Duties must 
be fulfilled, not forsaken. The limitations, the 
hardships of the present, must be — not re- 
nounced, but realized in experience ; every claim 
met, every obligation repaid, every claim fulfilled. 
Then this specific experience is ended. The in- 
dividual has transmuted its lessons into qualities 
of character, and has gained the strength of all 
that he has overcome. 

There is nothing more trivial, — one had al- 



The Spiritual Significance, 69 

most said more despicable, measured by the 
standard of intellect or spirit, than to talk of 
luck, " good luck," " ill luck ; " of people who 
are " fortunate " -or " unfortunate," as if there 
were certain fixed states and grades in life, and 
people were parcelled out and apportioned to one 
or the other, without any volition of their own. 
Industry and energy and the enthusiasm of pur- 
pose pursue their way and accomplish something, 
or inanity and indolence halt and hesitate and 
realize nothing; and the man who sees only 
effects and has no eye to discern causes looks on 
and pronounces the one to be "fortunate," the 
other to be " unfortunate." As well might the 
terms be applied to the man who sows seed in 
fertile ground and faithfully keeps it free from 
weeds and water and attends to it, and the 
other who carelessly flings the seed on a rock 
and makes no effort to plant and to cultivate. 
Events, circumstances, and surroundings are 
created; they are not found by chance. Not 
that one is morally to blame if he has not the 
power to create them, but this power is itself 
a thing that can be acquired by unfaltering fidel- 
ity to the right purpose; by making a deter- 



70 The Spiritual Significance. 

mined stand against indolence, irritation, and all 
that attends a low level of life; by vigilantly 
keeping the current of thought pure; keeping 
it full of affection, sweetness, generosity, love, 
and by doing in outward life '^ the next thing," 
the " duty that lies next " constantly, then this 
sweetness of spirit and energy of action com- 
bined will develop in its possessor the power to 
create and develop a higher line of work. 

There is a signal mistake made by some per- 
sons regarding spiritual power, in the belief that 
it is some mysterious and uncontrollable force 
that comes and goes ; that is wholly incalculable, 
wholly without the pale of law, and that, if ex- 
ercised at all, must be exercised in some passive 
and unconscious moments. The truth is just 
the opposite of this. Spiritual power is the 
most positive and highly conscious illumination. 
It is the absolutely irresistible force, that shapes, 
directs, controls, and creates. The interior, or 
acting being, as Balzac phrases it, is the con- 
joined force of thought and will. 

The laws that apply to physics also largely 
apply to life. In a course of astronomical lec- 
tures before the Lowell Institute Professor See 



The Spiritual Significance. 71 

described the vast nebulous masses that float in 
space ; whose temperature is the " absolute zero/' 
five hundred degrees below the zero of the ther- 
mometer ; which are on their way to become 
worlds : these masses of intensely cold nebulae, 
which at last begin to be heated, to grow hotter 
for ages, to come under the laws of gravitation 
and attraction, and then to grow cooler, lose 
their incandescent state, and become dark and 
invisible bodies in space. Thus a great many 
people seem to be in a nebulous state, — form- 
less, purposeless, cold ; drifting in space without 
the power to come under and profit by the spirit- 
ual laws ; lacking the fire of energy that would 
lead them to come into the developing currents 
of life, to be moulded by its discipline, directed 
by its subtle potencies, and amenable to its 
higher inspirations. 

Life is simply a matter of conditions that are 
evanescent, plastic to thought, easily malleable 
by our mental power brought to bear upon them. 
There is a great deal of nonsense talked about 
waiting for things, the " divine patience " being 
apparently held to be in direct ratio to the pas- 
sivity and mental vacuity possible to the dura- 



72 The Spiritual Significance, 

tioQ of the " enforced pause." Yet is this not a 
mistaken estimate ? Is not the true patience of 
waiting that which is a period of intense spirit- 
ual activity rather than of passivity, but an ac- 
tivity held in perfect harmony to the divine will ; 
the period of more closely uniting one's will with 
the divine purpose, and when this is achieved, 
boundless energy will flow in the direction and 
its power will appear ; and even as the formless 
stellar nebula begins to come under the con- 
trol of law in its process of evolution toward a 
world, so the individual will find himself coming 
into the possession of definite work, of the grow- 
ing power to control circumstances, and the 
possession of an individual orbit in the social 
firmament. The ^^ energizing spirit " is the one 
essential of life. Having found that, all else is 
easy. Circumstances are fluidic ; they are ready 
to flow in any direction, to take on any form, 
to pour themselves into any mould. The 
energy of spirit is the controller and the cre- 
ator of destiny. 

Now this energy is developed by doing the 
duty that lies next ; by doing, indeed, what- 
ever one can, that lies next. All the vari- 



The Spiritual Significance, 73 

ous kinds of work in this world, whether of the 
intellectual or industrial orders (as if the indus- 
trial did not require the intellectual to direct 
it aright, and the intellectual that persistence of 
activity that we call industry), these two orders, 
if they can be thus separated, comprise a great 
variety of employments, whose chief use is the 
development of spiritual forces. Whether these 
forces are gained from the platform of a motor 
car or from the chancel of a church ; from the 
further side of the sales counter of a shop or a 
library table ; from the sewing-room or the 
studio, — is far less consequence than the matter 
of gaining them. The end is one ; the means are 
various. This entire physical world is but a 
spiritual kindergarten, where the spiritual man 
takes on a physical body for a time, in order, by 
the discipline of material things, to develop and 
cultivate his spiritual qualities. He learns appli- 
cation to a given work, devotion to duty, 
patience, serenity, generosity, love. All these 
qualities he develops by the discipline gained in 
the physical world by means of social action and 
reaction. 

It is not in the line of spiritual progress to re- 



74 The Spiritual Significance. 

i— — — ^ — _ — __, 

fuse undertaking a work because it is not of a 
congenial nature. The distasteful, honestly per- 
formed, leads to the desirable. To decline the 
duty that lies next is to sink into spiritual pau- 
perism ; and who would not see in the faithful 
housemaid or hod-carrier a character higher than 
that revealed in this inane mental attitude ? 
Fortune and misfortune are not arbitrary defini- 
tions. They are the product of qualities and 
have almost the inevitability of sequence that 
characterizes a problem in mathematics. The 
Cunard steamer line has never lost a single life ; 
but to what is this unparalleled record due save 
to the most unfailing care on the part of the 
company and their captains in command ? It is 
good management, not ^^ good luck," that presents 
such a record. 

Fortune is simply the visible result of the 
series of choices which constitute a man's life. 
The moment man learns to think aright, the 
effects will be fortunate. Health, harmony, and 
happiness are an indissoluble trio that attend 
right purpose and noble thought. 

Life is precisely that which we first create in 
the realm of ideas. A poet has expressed this 
truth in the subtle lines : — 



The Spiritual Significance, 75 

" With Sodom apples fill thy harvest bin ; 

Barter heart wealth for gold in Fashion's mart ; 
Traverse rough seas some distant port to win, 
Without a chart. 

" Fray the fine cord of Love until it break ; 
Launch thy pirogue before the storm abate ; 
Tease the prone, sleeping Peril till it wake ; 
Then rail at Fate." 

The assertion that life is what we make it has 
become so trite as hardly to arrest attention ; 
but it is a crystallization of the profouudest phi- 
losophy and the deepest spiritual truth. Indeed, 
if one's life were what some one else made it ; if 
it were even made by God, — the spring of active 
well-doing would be stilled. In the latter case 
man would be an automaton, and in the former 
every inequality would be an injustice. In 
reality life is determined by two factors, — our 
conduct and our thought ; and conduct is almost 
entirely conditioned on thought. " Man dwells 
in various vehicles, physical, astral, and mental. 
The physical brain is the instrument of con- 
sciousness in making life on the physical plane ; 
and man only reveals as much of himself, in 
the present life, as his physical organism per- 



76 The Spiritual Significance. 

mits, for consciousness can manifest on the 
physical plane only so much as the physical 
vehicle can carry. During earth life the physi- 
cal and the ethereal bodies are not normally sepa- 
rated ; they normally function together, as the 
lower and higher chords of a musical instrument 
blend ; but these bodies also carry on separate 
though co-ordinated activities." Death is simply 
the withdrawal of the ethereal from the physi- 
cal. Now, just beyond the plane of the physical 
there is a region more highly vitalized and finer, 
where all impressions are more subtle and plas- 
tic; where life is more active. This ethereal 
world is all about us ; it is interpenetrated with 
the physical ; we live and move in it, but it is 
intangible, invisible, inaudible, imperceptible, 
because the prison of the physical body shuts us 
away from it, the physical particles being too 
gross to be set in vibration by ethereal matter. 
Man's physical form is not a fixed and un- 
changing thing. On the contrary, it is in a state 
of perpetual change, throwing off particles and 
attracting to itself new ones ; and the finer the 
thought, the finer the atoms attracted to build it 

up. 

" For soul is form and doth the body make,'* 



The Spiritual Significance. 77 

said Spenser. The words embody a literal 
truth. 

Thus the immortal man develops his spiritual 
faculties through all the discipline of a lifetime 
on earth. All the resources and energies of this 
life are a series of great object lessons by means 
of which the immortal faculties are educated, 
developed, cultivated. The thing achieved is 
temporary, but the development of power to 
achieve is permanent. The conception of noble 
architecture, the marvellous enterprises of the 
great works of civil engineering, the discoveries, 
the inventions, all these owe their greatest im- 
portance to their reflex influence in the develop- 
ment of the spiritual powers (using the term as 
inclusive of the intellectual powers) of those who 
invent or discover or achieve. 

The assertion that " the soul is not content to 
lie sub-conscious, — that by the ideal, which is 
the real, it tempts the conscious man onward," — 
is one that holds in solution a great truth, not to 
say even a philosophy. In the general average 
life, and all the life below the average, through- 
out all the past ages, the spiritual self in man 
(or the soul) has been in a sub-conscious state. 



78 The Spiritual Significance, 

That is to say, when man lives the mere physical 
life, laboring to compass the ends of food, cloth- 
ing, shelter, with whatever added comfort or 
luxury may be gained, the soul, the real man, is 
lying sub-conscious. Whenever an individual 
rises above this plane and his life flowers into 
greatness; when he lives the life of sacrifice, of 
heroism, and rises above the mere personal into 
the universal, — then does the soul assert itself, 
and he begins to live his true life as a spiritual 
being, related to the spiritual world. Each person 
who contributes to the general progress of society 
in any direction : liucy Stone, when with ideal 
vision she saw a larger future for w^omen, and 
set out, unaided and alone, — save that " one with 
God is a majority," — on her upward and toil- 
some path that was destined to give such rich 
results ; Garrison in his work for freedom ; 
Phillips Brooks in his unceasing zeal in the call 
to the truer life ; Dr. Nansen in his great re- 
searches in polar regions ; Edison and Tesla and 
Marconi in their constant efforts to advance into 
the knowledge and conquering of the more subtle 
forces ; all the world's heroes and prophets, its 
seers and its poets, have been those whose 



The Spiritual Significance. 79 

soul was not content to lie sub-conscious, but 
struggled to realize its ideal visions. To what, 
indeed, was due the discovery of America but 
the fact that the soul of Columbus was not con- 
tent to lie sub- conscious ? To what was due 
Cyrus Field's sublime achievement in the cable 
communication under the ocean but to this asser- 
tion of its powers by the soul ? Every advance 
in the conquest of new regions of the march of 
progress in all directions is the result of the 
active assertion of the life of the spirit. 

Immortality is this evolutionary advance into 
the life more abundant of whose nature intuition 
gives a degree of prevision. Browning questions : 

" Will the future life be work 

When the strong and the weak, the world's congeries, 
Repeat in large what they practised in small. 

Through life after life in unlimited series, 
Only the scales be changed, that 's all ? " 

Life is a continuity unbroken by the change of 
form involved in death. In the poet and the 
artist the spiritual nature is active, and the mind 
perceives those verities in the Unseen which are 
commonly attributed to imagination in the sense 
of mere fancy. Extreme sensitiveness to the 



80 The Spiritual Significance. 

realities in the Unseen becomes clairvoyance. 
Fragmentary experiences of clairvoyant vision are 
by no means rare, but their reality is so seldom 
recognized that the power, instead of being devel- 
oped, is stifled. The day is at hand when the 
recognized realm of reality is to be extended into 
the Unseen, when the horizon line will advance, 
when the present environment of physical life 
will be so extended and the conceptions of the 
next stage of being become so much more intel- 
ligent, that there will be practically a new heaven 
and a new earth. 

Sir William Crookes has already from the 
purely scientific side postulated unknown regions 
whose life yet affects our own to a degree 
incalculable. 

These boundless possibilities are now unfold- 
ing themselves to the world. Science and ethics 
and psychical research are all factors in this new 
and larger revelation of the divine universe, and 
humanity stands on the threshold of the most 
important era it has ever known. Dr. Drum- 
mond, catching an inspired glimpse of this truth, 
characterized the approaching change as " the 
religious use of the temporal world. Heaven 



The Spiritual Significance, 81 

lies behind earth," he continued, " and we learn 
that this earth is not merely a place to live in, 
but to see in. We are to pass through it as 
clairvoyants, holding the whole temporal world 
as a vast transparency, through which the eternal 
shines. . . . To the spiritual man there lies be- 
hind this temporal a something which explains 
all. Work is an incarnation of the Unseen. In 
this loom man's soul is made. There is a subtle 
machinery behind it all, working while he is 
working, making or unmaking the Unseen in 
him. Integrity, thoroughness, honesty, accuracy, 
conscientiousness, faithfulness, patience, — these 
unseen things which complete a soul are woven 
into its inner work. Apart from work these 
things are not." 

It is true that all the work, the courtesies, and 
the philanthropies of life serve a twofold pur- 
pose, — that of immediate convenience, comfort, 
or aid on the plane of the Seen ; that of develop- 
ment and spiritual enlargement on the plane of 
the Unseen. A railroad is built across a con- 
tinent, a cable is conducted under an ocean, a 
family in need are clothed and fed, a house is 
built and furnished and made ready for the beau- 
6 



82 The Spiritual Significance. 

tiful drama of living, and immediate uses are 
served, general progress and enlightenment are 
extended, the ways and means of terrestrial life 
are made finer and easier; but all this is the 
temporal side ; the permanent side is that the 
spiritual man has exercised his faculties and 
achieved greater development in his progress 
toward the spiritual world. Generous and beau- 
tiful as are many of the charities and courtesies 
and kindnesses of daily life, — is it yet fully 
realized that an opportunity to do a kindness 
to another is a luxury rather than an obligation ? 
There is some one we know who is in need of 
aid, and we recognize the need and suggest to 
ourselves that A, who has vast possessions, 
ought to assume this care and meet this need 
rather than we, who have no possessions at all ; 
and this is wholly wrong and defective reason- 
ing; for instead of its being a sacrifice or a 
burden to do all that is in our power for the 
one in need, it is a divine opportunity, a 
spiritual luxury. The only way to multiply those 
things needful in this part of life is to divide 
them. Possession is not a mere arbitrary affair ; 
a thing of exact measurement, which, being les- 



The Spiritual Significance, 83 

sened or depleted, necessarily remains so. Pos- 
sessions of all kinds — money, houses, lands, 
what we will — are but a precipitation in a given 
form from the Unseen realm. There is an abun- 
dance. The universe teems with riches. Things 
have no value merely in and of themselves, but 
only in that which they represent. If they rep- 
resent a certain energy which holds itself con- 
stantly related to the divine energy, which is 
fed from that infinite fountain, they will be re- 
newed in plenty and frequency, like the loaves 
and the fishes. This result is the working of a 
spiritual law, and it will only be experienced by 
those who have learned to live by that law. 
The laws governing the spiritual world are as 
absolute as those that govern the temporal. But 
as man is primarily a spiritual being, destined to 
live in a spiritual world, he can achieve his 
spirituality of life and relate himself to the 
divine powers. Nothing is impossible to him 
whose will has merged itself in the will of God. 
This is the only secret of the marvellous work 
of Jesus ; and He distinctly affirmed that what 
He did, all may do, and " even greater things." 
The spirituality of life includes morality, and 



84 The Spiritual Significance, 

morality includes the cardinal every-day virtues 
of justice, honesty, integrity. To talk of " liv- 
ing the higher life," and to ignore the financial 
integrity of keeping one's bills promptly and 
accurately paid, is to speak a meaningless jargon. 
There is no more disastrous attitude than for an 
individual to entertain the conviction that he is 
sent into the world on a special commission 
which relieves him from the obligation of prac- 
tising the ordinary virtues of industry and hon- 
esty. A woman begins to " live the higher life " 
when she pays her tradespeople, and is consider- 
ate to her maid, and is courteous to the chance 
comer. To talk about living the spiritual life 
and ignore the common duties of the day, is to 
sadly misinterpret the phrase, and to make of 
it a mere travesty. The teaching that influences 
people to give themselves up to ecstatic contem- 
plations ; to procure money — whether begged 
or borrowed — in whatever way it can be ex- 
tracted, and to fling to the winds any respon- 
sibility for ever paying it; to frankly take the 
ground, indeed, that because the borrower is 
" living the higher life," and is, as he announces, 
"spiritual," he is thereby released from the 



The Spiritual Significance. 85 

common honor and integrity of honest men and 
women, — such teaching is not only without 
value, but so far as it has any weight at all, it is 
dangerous. The very basis of spirituality of life 
is that of the moral qualities. To tell the truth ; 
to pay one's just bills ; to avoid contracting them 
when there is no adequate provision for their 
payment, and no idea as to how they are to be 
met ; to be as careful not to take advantage of 
another as one would be that another does not 
take advantage of himself; to be just, honest, 
faithful, and reliable, — these qualities are the 
only possible foundation for any true spirituality 
of life. What kind of an interpretation of the 
(alleged) higher life would that be of an indi- 
vidual who should recklessly procure money from 
any and all possible sources, without giving a 
thought as to how it was to be refunded, or 
whether it would ever be paid ? and who should 
teach to others that the true interpretation of 
the injunction of Jesus to ^'take no thought for 
the morrow" was in being totally unmindful 
of all the just obligations of life ? The man or 
woman who is honestly earning a living, who 
is faithful to his daily duties, however common- 



86 The Spiritual Significance. 

place or even trivial they may seem ; vi^ho is 
truthful and kind and generous in thought, even 
if he have not the means to be lavish in material 
gifts, — such an individual is the one who has 
already entered genuinely and nobly on "the 
higher life," — the life of spirituality. Well, 
indeed, does Mrs. Browning say : — 

" Natural things 
And spiritual, — who separates those two 
In art, in morals, or the social drift 
Tears up the bond of nature and brings death, 
Paints futile pictures, writes unreal verse, 
Leads vulgar days, deals ignorantly with men, 
Is wrong, in short, at all points." 

There is indeed no more dangerous ground for 
an individual than to set forth in life with the con- 
viction that he is a superior being and that, as he 
is made of finer clay than his fellows, the world 
owes him a living. Spirituality of life is not 
developed out of ignoring, but instead out of 
fulfilling obligations. The spiritual and the 
natural life are simply conditions of evolution. 
As Emerson illustrates, there comes a time to 
every man when he is careful that his neighbor 
does not cheat him ; there comes another time 



The Spiritual Significance, 87 

when he is careful that he does not cheat his 
neighbor. Obedience to the moral law is the 
true motive of life. " If you would be strong," 
well said Bishop Brooks, " you must learn to 
obey." Generosity in material gifts is a luxury, 
but it is a luxury that he alone should enjoy who 
has first observed the due necessity of justice and 
honesty. So with all the higher attributes of 
life. They are the first to be earned by obedi- 
ence to the necessities. Into the life that is thus 
obedient will come undreamed of beauty and 
power. The miracle will be wrought. It is 
wrought daily and hourly for all who have learned 
faith and obedience. 

The story of Martin Luther's ascent of the 
Sancta Scalain Rome — the Holy Staircase which 
is said to have formed a part of Pilate's house — 
is one that impresses the lesson of faithfulness in 
common duty. 

The story runs that as Luther was toiling up, 
a voice as if from heaven spoke to him and said, 
" The just shall live by faith." At that moment 
he realized that not by any exotic observances, 
but by the faith that makes faithful, is the nobler 
life achieved. 



88 The Spiritual Significance. 

The universe is made for man, not man for 
the universe. Every wish and aspiration whose 
trend is toward progress can be fully met, 
abundantly gratified. There is no more limit 
to the gratification of a right desire than there 
is to the air that one may breathe. Satisfac- 
tion and happiness are as infinite as the atmos- 
phere. The only limitation is the degree of 
receptivity in man. The need is to enlarge 
one's view of the universe; to deepen one's 
realization of the multitude of forces ceaselessly 
at work. 

It is not uncommon to hear the assertion 
that desires should be stifled and suppressed; 
that the individual should accept whatever be- 
falls, making no effort to alter the course of 
things; that if he insist on his own desires he 
is selfish, and may be depriving some one else of 
blessings by craving them for himself. This 
trend of speculation may proceed from a view 
not less inadequate because it is conscientious. 
Yet the whole teachings of Jesus are of the 
untold riches of the heavenly kingdom out of 
which man draws, not merely his religious and 
devotional life specifically, but all that makes 



The Spiritual Significance, 89 

for his happiness, his comfort, his advancement. 
What does Saint Paul say to the Ephesians ? 

" Now unto Him that is able to do exceed- 
ing abundantly above all that we ask or think, 
according to the power that worketh in us." 
These are strong words : the " exceeding abund- 
ance," even "above all that tve ask or think." 
And then the restrictive clause, "According 
to the power that worketh in us" offers matter 
for reflection. The words of Jesus Himself are 
full and very clear on the point of asking for 
what one desires. 

" Ask and receive, that your joy may be full." 
" If ye ask anything in my name, I will do it." 
"Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my 
name, He will give it you." 

Yet constantly and ever reiterated is the 
one restriction, — the condition that man him- 
self shall have achieved the only spiritual atti- 
tude in which it is possible that all these things 
shall be wrought. "If you abide in Me, and 
My words abide in you," — here is an expres- 
sion of the requisite condition. "For toithout 
Me ye can do nothing'' The forms of ex- 
pression are numerous and varied, but the sig- 



90 The Spiritual Significance, 

nificance is always the same. The condition 
of desire and its fulfilment is constantly con- 
joined with the invitation to man to ask what 
he will, — to ask for anything that he needs. 
^^ It is your Father's good pleasure to give you 
the kingdom." There is a constant i;rgency, 
even, brought to bear upon man to ask freely 
and fully for all that he desires. And with 
this repeated urgency is the attendant explana- 
tion of the condition under which alone the 
requisite may be fulfilled and the desires granted. 

*^But/' objects one, ^4t certainly cannot be 
right for us to ask for material things. We 
should pray only for spiritual qualities." 

But what are material things ? Are they not 
simply the manifestations of spiritual supply? 
A book is a material thing, but it is the mani- 
festation of the learning, the wisdom, the in- 
sight that it may contain. What was the 
manna in the Wilderness but a material thing ; 
or the loaves and fishes that Jesus invoked to 
feed the multitude ? The entire material world 
is the manifestation of the spiritual causes that 
produce it. Food, shelter, and clothing; the 
opportunities for study, the culture of society. 



The Spiritual Significance. 91 

of literature, art, travel, — these are not mate- 
rial things in the sense that they are only of 
the transient and the physical. They are the 
forms in which spiritual energy variously mani- 
fests itself; they are means of development, 
means of gaining power to aid in uplift and 
enlightenment ; to accomplish and achieve those 
things for which life here is designed. And 
why should not one ask for any or all of these ? 
" It is your Father's good pleasure to give you 
the kingdom." 

Man is placed in this world to utilize nature ; 
to discern the hidden forces and harness them 
to use. "Enlist every breeze, every waterfall, 
every magnetic current, in your service," said 
Victor Hugo, — a bit of counsel that is being 
constantly fulfilled by inventors and discoverers. 
The electric force that is in the air will yet be 
the universal motor. Wireless telegraphy, — 
what is that but thought sent by air currents? 
The power of the torrent of Niagara is utilized 
in New York City. Utopia is rapidly being 
conquered and invested with the yoke of reality. 

The prevailing defect is to ask too little 
rather than too much of life. Man is made 



92 The Spiritual Significance. 

for the region above the natural. The "super- 
natural" of one century is the commonplace 
reality of the succeeding one. In exact corre- 
spondence with the development of the forces of 
man does he rise into a new world of nature. 
" The life that is and that which is to come " is 
one life, one unbroken chain of evolution. The 
experiences that we shall enter upon after the 
event we call death are only the " next " life, or 
the "other" life, as are the experiences of to- 
morrow or next year "another" life. To live 
in the constant and vivid realization of this one- 
ness of life, to live in that perfect faith which is 
the " substance " — the substantial part — of the 
" things not seen ; " to live in the outgoing love 
to God and to men, — these are the conditions 
in which man may receive abundantly, above all 
that he can ask or think, of every gift and grace 
that makes for progress and happiness. 

Man is endowed with a spiritual nature which 
is capable of providing him with power that 
may be increased and expanded indefinitely, un- 
less he paralyze it by wilfully materializing his 
life. This may be done whenever a man leads 
the self-indulgent life rather than that in which 



The Spiritual Significance, 93 

his fidelity to the intellectual and the spiritual 
is unbroken. To most of us the expression, the 
"lower life/' suggests the absolutely degrading 
levels usually associated with that term. But 
many a life of the well-bred and the intelligent 
class is, after all, of a lower order and on a lower 
plane than it has any right to be. The terms 
high and low are relative. Anything less than 
one's best is low — to that individual. With 
reference to one man a low life implies criminal- 
ity and intoxication ; with reference to another 
his life may be — relatively to himself — low 
when he is idle, self-indulgent, and living in 
mere self-gratification, although in no sense trans- 
gressing any moral law. Man is, potentially, a 
divine being, and it is his business to live the 
divine life ; to repress the desires of the phys- 
ical senses and develop desire on the higher plane 
of intellectual and spiritual aspirations. To 
pass one's days lying in a hammock and reading 
novels — of the trashy, ephemeral kind — may 
not deserve to be classed as an immorality, but 
it certainly is not a mode of developing the 
higher powers of one 's nature ; while, on the 
contrary, a summer devoted to George Eliot 



94 The Spiritual Significance, 

and to Balzac might be the most profitable of 
seasons. 

There is no more immediately practical aid in 
life than those marvellous words of Saint Paul, 
"Be ye transformed by the renewing of your 
spirit." This divine germ implanted in man, 
whose growth is compared to a grain of mustard 
seed, is that innate power by means of which 
this transformation can be effected. That is, if 
as Canon Wilberforce says, " he does not wil- 
fully paralyze it by sensualizing and materializ- 
ing his life." This power in man is not merely 
a motor that may dominate motion and direc- 
tion; but a motor that gradually increases its 
power and transforms that object of which it 
is the moving spring. It is not true that any 
individual life is necessarily dominated by cir- 
cumstances. It is man's business to control cir- 
cumstances, to create them ; and he who is 
living as their victim, as a prisoner, so to speak, 
in his environment, is in a precarious condition 
which he should confront at once with a view to 
its rectification. He has more or less by some 
error in living, paralyzed his inner faculties of 
spiritual insight and power. The fault is in 



The Spiritual Significance, 95 

himself; the remedy must lie with himself. He 
requires redemption. The evangelical belief re- 
garding man's need of redemption rests on the 
most absolute foundation of truth. The divine 
germ in man must relate itself to God, the Divine 
Power. As the wire must receive the electric 
current in order to transmit the message, so man, 
made in the image of the Divine, with the germ 
of infinite power in himself, must place himself 
aright in the universe through the potency of 
prayer, and he can then work in harmony and in 
co-operation with the Divine Energy in shaping 
his own life ; in controlling and even in creating 
new combinations of circumstances. Once in 
the current of divine aspiration and inspiration, 
everything becomes possible. The resources of 
all the universe open and entreat one to enter. 
This germ of divine energy, implanted in man, 
has the power to elevate him into the invisible 
world ; to make him an inhabitant in the realm 
of causes, which, on this plane, are seen only 
as effects. As a dweller in the sphere of causes, 
he may also be an actor there. He may discern 
a new and higher plane to which he may transfer 
all the scenery and circumstances of his life. 



96 The Spiritual Significance, 

There are transitions even during the life here 
which are as complete in their transformation of 
environment as may, perhaps, be caused in some 
cases only by death. The will is the motor by 
which one may control his circumstances ; not a 
mere wilfulness, — which is a very different 
affair, — but the will in the high sense of seeing 
a perpetually unfolding path of increasing noble- 
ness and perfection, and placing one's self in 
harmonious accord with the currents that flow 
toward it; the will that, through prayer and 
unceasing aspiration, unites itself with the divine 
will, after which all the powers of earth and air 
cannot prevail against its high accomplishment. 

The life that now is and that which is to come 
are as intimately related as the life of childhood 
and youth, and of youth and manhood. Man 
does not '^ go to " heaven, but he creates his own 
heaven and enjoys the happiness and harmony 
associated with the term in exact proportion to 
the degree in which he has created them during 
his life on earth. Many a man still dwelling 
here experiences daily more of the joys of heaven, 
so called, than many others Avho have passed 
through the change we call death. Nor is 



The Spiritual Significance, 97 

heaven a state to be awaited patiently as some- 
thing identified with a far future. If one is not 
living in heaven to-day, in the spiritual condi- 
tions of peace and love that produce its joy, 
then he may be assured that something is wrong, 
and he should seek to set it aright just as he 
should seek, were he ill, to regain health again. 
Heaven is, of course, a term implying infinite de- 
grees ; a term that includes innumerable stages 
of progression. 

An increasingly intelligent conception of the 
life to come is of the greatest importance to the 
life that now is. Man can only receive such 
knowledge of God and the nature of the spiritual 
life as he is fitted to grasp ; but in this knowl- 
edge, like all other acquirement, each advance 
made fits one to receive another and a larger 
comprehension of truth. 

All modern research and investigation, and the 
reasoning from what is known to what is not 
known, confirms the intuitive belief that the con- 
ditions of life after leaving the body are the posi- 
tive and significant, and are to be assumed as 
the true standard in making all comparisons. 
Many writers assume that the state after death 
7 



98 The Spiritual Significance. \ 

is one inferior to the state before death ; and 

the prevailing popular idea is that to be " cut ' 

off," as is said, from the hope and promise of life ' 
here, is a great misfortune. This cannot be true 

unless the nature of life in the future is inferior \ 

to the nature of life in the present ; and as spirit • 
is the only potency, it must Ibllow that the life of 

the spiritual spheres must be far more significant j 

than that in the physical spheres. In its very | 

nature it is an advance so far as the conditions i 

go. But whether the individual is prepared to ) 

enter into the best uses of those higher and more \ 

significant conditions, to comprehend and enjoy j 

the privileges, is another question, and it is the \ 

supreme concern of the present life. It is the j 

question of knowledge instead of ignorance ; of ; 

morality instead of immorality ; of generosity ^ 

and love instead of selfishness and indifference ; ! 

of lofty purposes instead of ignoble mental ■ 
attitudes ; of spirituality rather than materiality. 

It is the question, too, of encouragement toward ' 

all excellence ; the question of happiness and i 
conviction rather than of undefined hope or of 
doubt. To realize with that absolute conviction 
born of intelligent comprehension that the life to 



The Spiritual Significance, 99 

come is closely interpenetrated with the life that 
now is ; that personal sympathy, aid, and com- 
panionship surround us constantly ; that we have 
only to ask for the uplifting influence, the perfect 
response, and it is ours ; that God works through 
means and not through miracles, and that His 
means include ministering spirits, — all this reali- 
zation enlarges and exalts the quality of daily 
life. 

Nor does it encroach in any wise on the 
Christian faith. If it is not " dangerous " to 
have loves and friendships with those in this 
world, it is not to have friendships and loves 
with those in the Unseen. Man does not love 
God less because he loves his friend. What, 
indeed, does Saint Paul say? That we may 
know whether or not we love God by the 
spirit He hath given us, by the love we bear 
to those with whom we are associated. While 
even this life offers privileges to man for co- 
operating with God in all noble and helpful 
work, the life to come offers such privileges in 
larger degree. To help others is the very essence 
of the heavenly life which has its teaching, its 
art, its literary work, its drama, its lectures, its 

LofC. 



100 The Spiritual Significance, 

preaching. All the manifold intellectual and 
spiritual activities here are but rudimentary 
hints of those activities there. Into that more 
significant life we may enter to some extent by 
an intelligent recognition of it, and to do this is 
to come closer to the divine world of harmonious 
energy. 

In this world of larger life and harmony does 
there enter the element of fate ? Is there a 
mutual exclusiveness of fate and of free will, 
or can any man, if he choose, enter into a 
present life of joy, of serenity, of high achieve- 
ment ? Can he, by a mental decision, pass from 
the discordant and the perplexing to the condi- 
tions of harmony and clear vision? With us 
all the inequalities of fortune always haunt 
the thought. " One shall be taken and another 
left." And why? ^^A thousand shall fall at 
thy left hand and ten thousand at thy right 
hand, and the pestilence shall not come nigh 
thee." And again we ask, why ? The children 
of one family, born and bred under the same 
influences and environment, go forth to meet — 
or to make — ■ lives as totally different from one 
another as if they were of different races. Two 



The Spiritual Significance. 101 

men sit side by side in a railway car when an 
accident occurs^ and one is killed and the other 
uninjured. Instances need not be multiplied. 
We see the inexplicable every day. Still, life is 
not made up of blind chance nor of automatic 
movements. Every outer event has its inner 
cause. " The riddle of the age has for each its 
private solution." Each man brings his fate 
with him. Each one is predetermining his 
fate for the future. Fate is limitation. To the 
degree that one lives in the material things of 
sense and time, to that degree is he entangled 
and held by them. In the degree in which he 
lives in qualities and principles and thought, 
to that degree is he free. " The revelation of 
Thought takes man out of servitude into free- 
dom." 

Of late years we hear much about karma. 
Fate and karma are interchangeable terms. 
Karma is another name for the conditions that 
we have ourselves created. These causes have 
their effects, and these effects are the more com- 
plicated because no one liveth to himself alone. 
There is not only a karma of the individual, but 
of his social affiliations, his attractions and mag- 



102 The Spiritual Significance. 

netisms, and there is, too, the karma of the 
race, which no one can fully or entirely escape. 
We share to some degree the fortunes of our 
times. "There is no such thing," says Annie 
Besant, " as ' chance ' or as ' accident ; ' all 
thoughts, deeds, circumstances, are causally re- 
lated to the past and will causally influence the 
future ; as our ignorance shrouds from our vision 
alike the past and the future, events often appear 
to us to come suddenly from the void, to be acci- 
dental, but this appearance is illusory. Man is 
continually sending out forces on all the planes 
on which he functions ; these forces them- 
selves — the effects of his past activities — 
are causes which he sets going in each world 
he inhabits; they bring about certain definite 
effects on himself and on others, and as these 
causes radiate from himself, he is responsible for 
the results they bring." 

We learn by philosophic and psychological 
study that man inhabits three distinct planes 
during this present life : the mental plane, on 
which his energy is thought ; the astral plane, 
on which his energy is desire ; and the physical, 
on which his energy takes the form of acts. 



The Spiritual Significance, 103 

Now, these threefold results of our life, acts, 
desires, and thoughts, produce one's karma, or 
his fate. 

Again, as man advances to the higher life, he 
decreases his fate ; that is to say, he transcends 
his limitations. He becomes more the master 
and less the slave. As he advances in knowl- 
edge, he can control laws and not be controlled 
by them. 

** Look ! the clay dries into iron, but the potter moulds 

the clay ; 
Destiny to-day is master ; man was master yesterday." 

Yet if destiny to-day is master, man may 
be master to-morrow. If he is this year the 
slave of the events he has created, he may 
begin now to dominate and control the events 
of next year. Here is where the problem of 
free will comes. Let one begin to live more in 
thought and less in desire, and he is already 
advancing toward freedom. 

There can be no question but that each indi- 
vidual's life, with all its varied experiences, repre- 
sents the sum up to that time of all that he has 
done, desired, and thought. He has set up such 



104 The Spiritual Significance. 

a range of vibration that the results could be 
nothing else than what they are. But events, 
circumstances, conditions, are plastic to the will. 
The development of will power is the motor of 
life. The power of the will is the creative, the 
divine element in man. 

Cause and effect determine these mutual re- 
sults with almost mathematical accuracy ; but 
there is a power to which both are plastic and 
amenable. The Divine overruling is around 
all life, and it is just here that the philosophy of 
the Hindoo and of the Christian diverge. The 
Eastern wisdom teaches that as a man sows, so 
shall he reap. But the higher truth of the 
Christian faith is that the soul may so relate 
itself to the Divine that the miracle may be 
wrought; that all life — its entire conditions 
and scenery and trains of events — may be trans- 
formed by the renewing of the mind. The law 
of gravitation is a truth, and holds all who are 
under it subject to its force ; but once transcend 
the law of gravitation and come under that of 
attraction, and all is changed. Man may con- 
tinue to live under the law of Fate ; to *^ work 
out his karma," as the Hindoo would say, and 



The Spiritual Significance. 105 

to gradually produce better results and to begin 
to extricate himself from karmic conditions. But 
he may also consecrate his life to the divine 
power ; he may lift himself up to God and His 
Son and become a sharer in the divine life ; and 
an intense and supreme hour may do for him 
what a century of mere effort by his own will 
could not achieve. 

" Commit thy works unto the Lord, and thy 
thoughts shall be established." One may be- 
come one of those spirits 

" with whom the stars connive 
To work their will." 

He may come to conquer and prevail. The 
habit of giving the first half-hour of the morning 
each day to the renewal of consecration to the 
Divine Life will signally aid in freeing man from 
the entanglement and limitation of desire and 
conditions. 

"He only is rich who owns the day/' said 
Emerson ; and no one owns the day who allows 
it to be invaded vrith worry and fret and 
anxiety. There are vices — the term is none 
too strong — that to many people masquerade as 
shining virtues. One will hear a member of a 



106 The Spiritual Significance, 

family say to another with the air of one who 
utters the final word of affection or love, "I 
have been worrying about you all day." Not 
unfrequently a wife will assure her husband ou 
the eve of his departure on a journey that she 
shall worry about him all the time he is gone. 
A mother will narrate the liberal margin of time 
she devotes to " worrying " over her children, 
and in one way or another this most unprofitable 
and absurd mental state is more or less held up 
to canonization. Should it not be set down as 
a moral axiom that worry is not only unneces- 
sary, but that it is positively and distinctly 
harmful, both to the one who worries and the 
one who is worried over? It should not re- 
ceive the tolerance of even a negative virtue, but 
be relegated wliere it belongs, among the posi- 
tive vices. If people would take to worrying 
over their enemies, — that is another matter. 
Not that one would desire to recommend re- 
venge and ill will as desiderata of life, but, at all 
events, as human nature goes, there might be 
some logic and reason in that course. The 
divine law that bids us love our enemies is a 
far nobler one than a Mosaic dispensation that 



The Spiritual Significance, 107 

should bid us worry over them ; but at all 
events, where there is afFection and good-will, 
where there is faith and tenderness and love, it 
is strangely absurd to introduce this element. 

For fret and anxiety produce discord. The 
philosophy of spiritual vibrations is one that 
may be as definitely formulated as any exact 
science. To worry is to send to the object of 
this mental disturbance inharmonious vibration. 
It is to make him the focus of discordant thought, 
of images of misery, or suffering, or failure, that 
imprint themselves upon his subjective mind, 
and tend to produce the outward results in mate- 
rializing themselves, and taking form and force. 

Worrying is somewhat largely a feminine 
failing. It is to be hoped that among the tran- 
scendent virtues of the " new " woman will 
appear that of the cheerfulness and the courage 
that rises above fret and anxiety. A man who 
was addicted to this state of mind would cer- 
tainly be regarded as an unsafe and unreliable 
person. 

Fret and worry are the results of a lack of 
confidence in one's self and in the divine powers. 
The Christian professes faith in the divine power 



108 The Spiritual Significance, 

and ruling. If he really feel this faith, he cannot 
distrust, and thus distort all the lines of commu- 
nication. It produces an atmosphere through 
which the heavenly magnetism cannot pass. 
Anxiety paralyzes the will power and makes 
any true achievement doubtful or impossible. 
It is like betaking one's self to crutches from 
the fear that some time and some way an 
accident will deprive liim of the use of his 
feet. 

Courage and faith are creative forces and 
own the day. They are a mine of inexhaustible 
treasure. They are, indeed, "of the least pre- 
tension and the greatest capacity of anything 
that exists." Deeply true it is, as Emerson says, 
that " if we do not use the gifts they bring, they 
carry them as silently away." The present hour 
is always the critical, the decisive hour. Fill it 
with anxiety, distort all the combinations of the 
divine forces with fear and fret, and what kind 
of a future does one thus prepare for himself or 
for those dear to him ? 

Courage and cheerfulness create successful 
conditions. They are magnetic to the fortunate 
elements. Man is a spirit living in a spiritual 



The Spiritual Significance, 109 

world. He cannot afford not to avail himself of 
spiritual forces. Let one own the day. Let 
him own his future, in that he recognizes its 
potent forces for the creation of the divine king- 
dom on earth. 

"We all live in the sublime," well says 
Maeterlinck. " Where else can we live ? That 
is the only place of life. And if aught be lacking, 
it is not the chance of living in heaven, rather is 
it watchfulness and meditation ; also, perhaps, a 
little ecstasy of the soul. Though you have but 
a little room, do you fancy that God is not there 
too, and that it is impossible to live there in a 
life that shall be somewhat lofty ? If you com- 
plain of being alone, of the absence of events, of 
loving no one and being unloved, do you think 
that the words are true ? Do you imagine that 
one can possibly be alone, that love can be a 
thing one knows, a thing one sees ; that events 
can be weighed like the gold and silver of ran- 
som ? . . . All that happens to us is divinely 
great, and we are always in the centre of a great 
world." 

There can be no truer affirmation of life than 
this assertion. The greatest failure in life is that 



110 The Spiritual Significance, 

of underestimating its significance. The moment 
the entire drama of daily living is seen in the 
light of a part of the immortal life, that moment 
our daily duties become invested with an interest 
and a zest undreamed of before. Now, if this 
assertion were only true of a certain range of life ; 
if it could only be predicted of the minister, the 
president of a bank, the college professor, or the 
judge of the Supreme Court, — its application 
would be too restricted to merit allusion. But 
it is equally true of the work of the busy wife 
and mother and homekeeper ; of the work of the 
saleswoman who goes every morning to her post 
of duty ; of the work of the professional man in 
his office, or of the work of any man or woman 
in the industrial callings. 

The true life, that of thought, aims, aspirations, 
and purposes, is not necessarily identified with 
the outward work of the hands. A woman may 
sew a seam, or sweep a floor, or serve a cus- 
tomer over the counter, and at the same moment 
live an inner life of the highest quality. This 
exaltation of the real (because the spiritual) life 
will reflect itself outwardly in gentleness, patience, 
sweetness, — in an atmosphere that will com- 



The Spiritual Significance, 111 

municate its charm and uplift to all who come 
in contact with it. Emerson says, — 

*' There is no great and no small 
To the soul that knoweth all." 

And it is true that all our outer occupations are 
but as the " gifts " of the kindergarten by means 
of which to exercise and develop our powers. 
In that sense it is of little consequence whether 
this employment be one thing or the other ; but 
it is of great consequence that the attitude of 
mind, the quality of the spirit, be kept noble 
and true, and generous and sympathetic. The 
spiritual being that each one of us is, — tempora- 
rily inhabiting a physical body, and temporarily 
sojourning on earth, — this spiritual being is ac- 
quiring a development by means of contact 
with the physical world. The manner of 
this contact is of minor importance ; but the 
qualities developed and cultivated are of the 
very greatest and of eternal importance. It is 
perfectly possible, in even the lowliest and the 
most restricted circumstances, to live a life that 
is lofty, noble, and deeply significant. 

A force that is determining to a degree not 
yet fully realized, is that of auto-suggestion, 



112 The Spiritual Significance, 

and it may be employed on the physical, the 
mental, or the spiritual plane, with equally 
signal effect. It is a subtle, determining 
power, elusive in its nature, escaping analysis 
or classification, but acting as the controlling, the 
all-determining power of our lives. It is as 
elastic as air, and as flexible and all-pervasive. 
It is as potent as the mysterious force that 
Keeley sought to discover, yet this dominating 
energy by which we are so largely directed is 
to us mysterious and unknown. The secret 
of all success and happiness is to learn its 
nature and laws. 

Auto-suggestion proceeds from the spiritual 
self. It is the higher controlling the lower; 
but while we are largely unconscious of the 
nature and power of this higher self and its 
relation to the lower, we can never receive the 
full directions it offers nor clearly comprehend 
those that we do receive. There has been a 
great deal of talk about the lower and the 
higher self, the consciousness and sub-con- 
sciousness ; and much of this talk has rather 
steeped the subjects in mystery than left it 
clear. 



The Spiritual Significance, 113 

Leaving the variously vague terms, let us sim- 
ply call this higher consciousness our real self. 
Let us conceive of it as the immortal being 
who is temporarily incarnated in the physical 
virorld, but whose truest real life is still within 
the unseen world and companioned by unseen 
friends. Now it is only a part, a fragment, of 
the complete consciousness which animates the 
temporal body. " Our life is hid with Christ 
in God." That is, our real life is being lived 
in the unseen world. The degree in which the 
lower conscious life is able to draw upon this 
larger and more real life, the finer and more 
important are its powers and achievements. 
The secret of success and happiness would 
be to establish the relations between this 
higher and more permanent and real self and 
the lower self, or the objective consciousness. 
Auto-suggestion is made by the higher self to 
the lower. Just in proportion as the latter 
can relate itself to the former and learn to 
recognize its messages, just in that proportion 
will life be joy and exhilaration. 

It is possible to realize this higher self in the 
daily, outward living ; to come into a unity 
8 



114 The Spiritual Significance. 

with this larger spiritual force from which the 
conscious spirit draws its energy, and thus re- 
ceive the constant guidance, the unfailing 
instruction. 

How can it be done ? First, by a recognition 
of its possibility. Let one learn to think of 
himself as a spiritual being dwelling in a spirit- 
ual world, with the responsibility upon him to 
order his outward manifestation of life while 
here with the serene dignity, courtesy, sweet- 
ness, and love that is the natural expression of 
the higher nature. He must live worthily of 
himself. 

Again, he must train himself to rely on this 
higher nature. The spiritual self has its spirit- 
ual perceptions. It can see and hear what can- 
not be seen or heard by the outer eye and ear. 
It perceives, as by clairvoyance and clairaudience. 
For instance, a lady went out one evening to call 
on two friends. Having made the first call, she 
was about to turn off to the street on which the 
other friend lived, when she asked of her higher 
(her real) self if this friend were at home ? 
And had she better go to the house ? The reply 
came after a minute or two, sifting into her 



The Spiritual Significance. 115 

objective consciousness, directing her not to go 
that evening, but to go the next morning. She 
obeyed, finding that the evening before the 
friend had been out of town, and the hour 
chosen in the morning vras the one of all others 
especially convenient. 

Such incidents, trivial in themselves, are yet 
the straws that indicate the direction of a law 
governing human life. 

The familiar experiment of waking one's self 
at any hour in the morning is well known. Any 
person can soon train himself to waken at the 
time he fixes upon the night before with the 
unerring regularity of the most perfect time- 
piece. In the same manner he may control the 
next day by stamping certain images on the 
plastic astral world over night. He may stamp 
it with joy, with achievement, with success. It 
is simply allowing the higher self to take the 
control ; to live in the spiritual world of forces 
rather than passively and blindly in the physical 
world of causes. 

A certain education of the body is essential 
to the more complete grasping of this life. To 
eat lightly and simply; to take the cold bath 



116 The Spiritual Significance. 

on waking in the morning, followed by some 
measure of exercise; to have a half hour for 
reading, prayer, of meditation, before breakfast, 
— this is to begin the day aright, and to train 
the body to be a flexible, elastic instrument for 
the spiritual being to use. Certain physical, 
mental, and spiritual observances will completely 
transform and regenerate any person who is 
faithful to the higher ideals. Of course it is 
this auto-suggestion that cures disease and wards 
off all illness when its laws are understood. 

An error in any study of auto-suggestion is 
sometimes made in the mistaking of desire for 
will. To wish, or to desire, is not to will. The 
one is of the transient and the temporal ; the 
other of the eternal and spiritual. Desire acts 
on the physical plane among effects and results ; 
while will acts on the spiritual plane among 
causes. It is literally true that one can do 
anything that he wills to do ; but it is also 
true that his will is conditioned by the degree 
to which he has achieved spirituality of purpose 
and aspiration. Desire is of the human realm; 
will is of the divine realm. As man lives in 
both worlds or on both planes, he may act from 



The Spiritual Significance, 117 

both these motives. As a matter of fact, he 
always acts more or less from desu-e, and he may 
increasingly learn how to act from will. The 
power of will is a part of his divine inheritance. 
The animal desires, but cannot will. Man, in 
exact proportion as he develops his divine 
natm-e, comes into possession of the power to 
create his conditions and circumstances. Every 
element that enters into these exists in the spir- 
itual atmosphere. These elements are subject 
to the will, which can attract and combine them 
in any form which its creative power is strong 
enough to draw, to arrange, and to stamp with 
the image of the purpose conceived. 

There is a great deal of nebulous talk and 
exhortation in the air regarding '' concentra- 
tion " and kindred topics, and for the most part 
this is unrelated in the minds of those who talk 
about it to anything in particular. It is a 
fragmentary approach to a great truth. To be 
advised to meditate and concentrate with no 
farther application is not unlike learning the 
alphabet without foreseeing its relation to 
literature. 

The process of creating by will power involves. 



118 The Spiritual Significance. 

first, a perfectly clear and definite perception of 
the condition to be created. A teacher, we will 
say, desires pupils ; a youth wishes to enter col- 
lege; a man is anxious to go to Europe, or to 
enter on a certain profession, or to achieve a 
specific work. All these, and the multitude of 
plans and achievements of which these are typi- 
cal, are perfectly possible to the power of the 
will. They all depend on certain combinations 
of elemental conditions. Therefore they are 
in the spiritual universe, which is sensitive to 
the slightest energy of thought. 

The vision seen must then be impressed, 
stamped, by the energy of the will. It is thus 
created in the spiritual world ; and its embody- 
ing itself in outward conditions is merely a 
question of time. 

To illustrate: an artist who had also a dis- 
tinct gift for literary expression conceived the 
idea of writing a book on a given subject. But 
his time was filled with his painting and with 
classes in art. There was no time for writing. 
No one, save the heroine of an impossible novel, 
can work all day and write all night. Nor was 
there, humanly speaking, any conceivable pros- 



The Spiritual Significance, 119 



pect of the leisure required for this new work. 
Still, the artist held it in his mind and stamped 
it with the irresistible energy of the will. Sud- 
denly there came a most singular upheaval of 
circumstances. Changes of condition, incredible 
and undreamed of, ensued, and in the twinkling 
of an eye, so to speak, the painter was free to 
write. Now the other changes were simply the 
natural, the inevitable effects of the will power 
that he had generated by his clear conception of 
the achievement on which he wished to enter, 
and the energy of will which had stamped this 
clear vision and thus created it in the astral. 
Once created there, the outer life conformed to 
the inner image, just as inevitably as water 
poured in a glass takes the shape of the goblet. 
All external life is plastic and fluidic to the 
power of will. " The flowing conditions of life," 
says Emerson. Nothing is fixed ; everything is 
subject to the power of the will. And in the 
increasingly larger grasp and comprehension of 
the creative force of the will when fed from the 
exhaustless reservoir of the Divine Energy lies 
the key to the spiritual significance of life. 



VISION AND ACHIEVEMENT. 



VISION AND ACHIEVEMENT. 

" Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new 
creature." 

Sole and self-commanded works, 

Fears not undermining days, 

Grows by decays, 

And, by the famous might that lurks 

In reaction and recoil, 

Makes iiame to freeze and ice to boil. 

Emerson. 

jOTHING is permanent save spiritual 
energy, and that is continually ad- 
vancing and conquering new territory. 
" No truth so sublime but it may be trivial to- 
morrow in the light of new thoughts," says 
Emerson. " People wish to be settled ; but 
only so far as they are unsettled is there any 
hope for them." 

Certain measures of religious truths do their 
work ; they must then give way to new forms. 
The growth of the soul requires a series of the 




124 The Spiritual Significance, 

*^ more stately mansions." All that was perma- 
nently valuable in the past persists and enters 
into new combinations to serve the present. 
Religion was never a final but a progressive 
revelation. ^* The pure in heart shall see God." 
The purer one grows in heart, the more truly shall 
he see God. " He that doeth the will shall know 
of the doctrine ; " and the more faithfully man- 
kind come to do the will of God, the more largely 
do they perceive His doctrine and methods. 

Emerson's allusion to Swedenborg in the fol- 
lowing lines is a wonderful phrasing of his recog- 
nition of the new message given to the world by 
the great scholar and seer. 

" In spirit worlds he trod alone, 
But walked the earth unmarked, unknown; 
The near bystander caught no sound, — 
Yet they who listened far aloof 
Heard rendings of the skyey roof, 
And felt beneath the quaking ground ; 
And his air-sown, unheeded words 
In the next age are flaming swords. '* 

To Swedenborg it was given to have the clair- 
voyant vision that revealed certain actualities in 
the unseen world in which we dwell. As the 
telescope shows stars unrevealed to the natural 



Vision and Achievement, 125 

eye, as the microscope demonstrates the existence 
of a world otherwise unsuspected, so the revela- 
tions of the spiritual sight offer a wealth of new 
information regarding the manifestations of life 
on a plane just above that on which we now 
live. 

On the threshold of the twentieth century the 
time has come for faith to be informed by knowl- 
edge. Nor is faith less, but more, when so in- 
formed. The sublimity of the universe is not less 
to the astronomer than to one ignorant of side- 
real laws, but instead, is more impressive and 
more vast. As we learn to know the laws that 
govern the unseen world, as we comprehend 
the close and intimate interrelations between 
the physical and the spiritual world, we are pre- 
pared to enter with new uplift of spirit into the 
Divine Communion. There is a perfect correla- 
tion of our physical and the spiritual forces. 
There is the most direct, the most inthnate, the 
most unceasing telepathic communication be- 
tween spirit and spirit, the one in the Seen, the 
other in the Unseen. The present life is vital- 
ized by heavenly forces. 

Life is a process of perpetual evolution. The 



126 The Spiritual Significance. 

" material " and the " spiritual " cannot be re- 
garded as two separate and utterly distinctive 
states with fixed boundaries : they are no more 
separated than are light, heat, and electricity ; or 
than ice, water, vapor, and ether. Condense a 
cloud floating in the sky, and we have water ; 
condense the water by intense cold, and we have 
solid ice ; melt the ice by moderate heat, and 
there is again water; apply greater heat, and 
there is steam or vapor ; still greater, and the 
vapor becomes invisible, because it is still more 
refined. Spirit and matter are in the relation 
of cause and effect. Matter is the manifestation 
of spirit. The entire material world, as we call 
it, is the manifestation of the spiritual w^orld. 
All this part of life is experimental. It is the 
rehearsal before the play, the tuning of the 
instruments before the concert. We are learn- 
ing how to begin to live and to realize how inex- 
haustible are the treasures of the spiritual world. 
The acceptance of this philosophy which teaches 
the interpenetration of the ethereal and the physi- 
cal will give to those who recognize its truth a 
" knowledge of scientific causes," and as has been 
well said : " Those who have been fascinated by 



Vision and Achievement 127 

the mysteries of science, and come only in the 
hope of adding some new physical law to those 
already known will learn to know God through 
the beauty of our teachings ; and those who will 
come in the hope of finding at last a solution for 
social problems will find in these teachings a 
comforting love and a most admirable science 
and beautiful understanding of life, the only one 
able to give to man peace and happiness." 
Yet it has been remarked that if one contem- 
plates with any special devotion of thought the 
nature of existence in its wholeness, it tends to 
unfit him for " practical " life ; that his convic- 
tion of infinite progress would lead him to feel 
that the present had no value. The truth is just 
the opposite of this. Let one realize the absolute 
continuity of existence and at once life becomes 
worth the living. 

Let one — by way of illustration — suppose a 
day which ended with a night beyond which the 
individual had no clear idea of the experiences 
which awaited him. Let it further be supposed 
that he expected some great change to take 
place in himself during the night, so that, on 
again resuming consciousness, he would have 



128 The Spiritual Significance. 

lost all trace of his identity, and he would be in 
conditions inconceivable to him at the present 
time. Could he work with the same energy and 
clearness of aim that he does when realizing 
that he takes up his work on the morrow where 
he lays it down to-day? The analogy holds 
perfectly true in its relation to life before and 
after the event of death. The clear realization 
of an orderly progression under divine laws ; the 
consciousness that where we leave off here, we 
begin there ; that every intellectual acquirement 
and development of those qualities which are 
immortal — love, patience, generosity, tolerance, 
sweetness of spirit — enable their possessor to 
enter on the conditions to which they corre- 
spond, — this realization is that which encourages 
and stimulates one in his present experiences. 

Again, the higher spiritual world is not entered 
exclusively by the gateway of death. It may be 
entered to-day. It is not the condition of being 
divested of a physical body, but of realizing and 
achieving the development of the spirit. Every 
time that one controls the impatient word or 
thought ; that he realizes the close ties of human 
brotherhood : that he is careful for the interest 



Visio7i and Achievement 129 

and advancement of others as well as for him- 
self, — in all these is he living, now and here, 
ihe higher life of the spiritual state. 

The intuitive certainty of the nature of the 
life to come is being wonderfully reinforced of 
late by the demonstrable facts of communication 
between those who have gone beyond death and 
those here. If it were true that the event we 
call death so entirely changed the plane of 
consciousness that no communication between 
that state and this were possible, then by all 
means let us come to the clear perception and 
the entire acceptation of this theory. Even then, 
as our present state has definite limits, we 
need not be as those without hope. We know 
that sometime within a hundred years from our 
first entering on this part of life we shall 
inevitably pass on to another part ; and while we 
all feel the theatre of the present to be infinitely 
enlarged, uplifted, and ennobled by the inter- 
communication with the state just beyond, yet 
even were it utterly devoid of this and life 
restricted exclusively to the physical world, still 
as spiritual beings now and here we would admit 

it to be even then full of the richest significance, 
9 



130 The Spiritual Significance. 

of noble dignity, of infinite opportunity. So 
could we for a moment imagine an absolute 
barrier shut down between the two states of 
life, — an impenetrable one which forbade to us 
any intimation of the friend who had passed out 
of his physical body, — even then life would have 
its duties, its dignities, even its hopes and 
beliefs. For while it is a question that seems to 
include great possibilities of personal happiness 
during the remainder of life here, yet we all, in 
the hours of deepest experience, realize that 
there are other interests than those of personal 
happiness, and that we may, as Carlyle has 
said, " do without happiness and find blessed- 
ness." At all events, there is no person who 
may not find opportunities for usefulness, and he 
would be unworthy of the gift of life if he did 
not value these and pray to fulfil them to the 
utmost of his ability. Still, these very opportu- 
nities of being useful to others, of contributing 
to the progress of his day, are very largely in- 
creased by the interpenetration of that world of 
finer force with this one in which the causes in 
the higher are felt as effects in the lower. And 
supreme above all mortal reasoning or desire 



Vision and Achievement. 131 

rises the greatness and goodness of God the 
Father and of Jesus the Son ; the overwhelming 
reality and importance of the Christian life, the 
marvellous significance of the example and the 
teachings of Jesus, and one seems to hear a voice 
that says, " Be still, and know that I am God." 
In this supreme consciousness, the question of 
communication between those in the Seen and 
those in the Unseen reveals itself as one detail 
only in the great wholeness of life, almost as a 
letter coming or not coming from a friend might 
be a detail in a week's experience. If the letter 
comes, one is glad ; if it does not come, why, one 
knows that his friend lives and loves him, — 
that his friend is fulfilling the duties of his 
place ; and if the letter does not come to-day, it 
may to-morrow. 

Faith in Christ and in immortality is untouched 
and unimpaired by either the reality or unreality 
of specific communication between the two 
worlds ; yet if this communication is indeed one 
of the divine laws, what a vista it opens before 
the eye ! Canon Wilberforce in Westminster 
Abbey is preaching the truth of the communion of 
spirit with spirit across the gulf of death ; of the 



132 The Spiritual Significance, 

higher unfolding of spiritual powers while here 
in the body ; in the heretofore undreamed 
potencies that science is discovering ; the truth 
of thought transference ; the transformation of 
life by the closer union of humanity with God. 
It is the present privilege of each and all to live 
in the spiritual world, among spiritual forces, 
from motives of love, peace, joy, and good-will. 
One may create his atmosphere of these ele- 
ments, and make his life, as Canon Wilber- 
force so truly says, the daily "coming forth 
from that Father and coming into the world." 
The most literal of facts is embodied in the 
assurance that God will keep in perfect peace 
those whose mind is stayed upon Him. 

We are always by way of hearing more or less 
reference made to certain things as being " prac- 
tical," — as offering a reasonable and logical 
basis on which to rest. In these days, when 
thought is recognized as among the highest po- 
tencies; when a newly discovered ray of light 
penetrates substance heretofore believed to be 
solid ; when we are perpetually conquering ter- 
ritory in this realm of the Unseen, it may be 
realized anew how practical is the counsel: 



Vision and Achievement. 133 

" Commit thy way unto the Lord and He shall 
bring it to pass." That is, unite one's will with 
the will of God, one's energy with the Infinite 
energy ; commit all one's hopes and desires and 
belief to the irresistible currents of progress ; 
merge every hope in the universal hope for the 
triumph of good and the destruction of evil, and 
the forces of life are transferred to a new centre ; 
all the elements reorganize and rearrange them- 
selves, and all things have become new. It is 
as if on one side were conditions of the most 
radiant joy and energy, of the divine magnetism, 
of the uplifting forces. It is easy to live in 
them. It is optional with one to live in the 
negative, the lower, the discordant conditions; 
but the choice is purely mental and does not in 
the least depend upon outward circumstances. 
The mind is a magnet ; all the forces in the uni- 
verse are magnetic, and by concentrating one's 
own power upon certain lines, all the forces 
along those lines are drawn and may be used. 
The universe is an infinite reservoir of all things 
of which one has need. The supply is not pre- 
cipitated by a miracle, but a strong desire, mag- 
netized with right purpose, creates the conditions 



134 The Spiritual Significance, 

for its fulfilment. One may well stand in awe 
of the infinite potencies that he may call to him 
in hours of silent concentration unless he has for- 
tified himself by uniting his spirit with the divine. 
There is a scientific basis of spiritual life; 
that is, there are modes and habits which con- 
duce to the unfolding and the development 
of the spiritual man ; there are modes and 
habits that stifle the spiritual man, and prevent 
this higher consciousness from manifesting itself 
through the physical brain. Is not, then, this 
study the most important and the most practical 
that can be divined ? This basis teaches that the 
higher life is twofold, negative and positive, or 
passive and active. The first consists of avoiding 
sins ; the second that of practising virtues. The 
first is not to do certain things; the second is to 
do certain things. Of course this corresponds pre- 
cisely to the teachings of the Old Testament and 
of Jesus ; the one that enjoined the command- 
ments prefixed with "Thou shalt not;" the 
other, that enjoined the active practice of love 
and sacrifice. In the first mode we find an im- 
portant feature in laying this foundation to be 
that of truth ; of not uttering, by word or deed. 



Vision and Achievement. 135 

any falsehood. For our conduct and our thought 
is creating the ethereal body; to utter a false- 
hood is to make a corresponding deformity; it 
is to produce a flaw in the crystal; it is to 
generate an influence that interposes as an ob- 
stacle between our own souls and God. It is 
the wasting of spiritual force, the true method 
being to store it. In the first stage, besides 
not consenting to any shade of falsity, one must 
scrupulously refrain from unkind and disagree- 
able thoughts, and from assisting to circulate 
unpleasant or unkind impressions regarding 
others. In the second stage, these virtues ad- 
vance to the positive and active side, and the 
student not only refrains from doing e^dl, but 
actively does good. Thus is he modifying his 
ethereal body which is plastic to his current of 
thought, and is the result of his prevailing 
mental and moral attitudes. Not only this, but 
these mental and moral attitudes control the 
magnetic and ethereal currents that shape events, 
that produce all the outer circumstances and 
conditions of our lives. 

" It is a strengthening and calming consideration," 
says Canon Wilberforce, " that we are in the midst 



136 The Spiritual Significance. 

of an invisible world of energetic and glorious life, 
a world of spiritual beings than whom we have been 
made for a little while lower. Blessed be God for 
the knowledge of a world like this. It is evidently 
that region or condition of space in which the de- 
parted find themselves immediately after death ; 
probably it is nearer than we imagine, for Saint Paul 
speaks of our being surrounded by a cloud of wit- 
nesses. There, it seems to me, they are waiting for us." 

It is a fact in contemporary progress that 
communication between those in the Seen and 
those in the Unseen has grown of late years far 
less difficult. It is hardly anticipating too much 
to say that the possibility of this communication 
is a rather generally accepted fact by intelli- 
gent people. There are few who do not admit 
the conviction of its possibility; the dividing 
line being that one believes that this communi- 
cation is according to a natural law and is good 
and profitable unto men, while another regards 
it as the infringement of a law. Yet the day is 
at hand when intelligent people will no more 
think of doubting the law that renders commu- 
nication possible than they would think of doubt- 
ing the law of gravitation. 



Vision and Achievement, 13/ 

Now, this of itself is an immense territory 
already conquered. The Society of Psychic 
Research has been a valuable factor in this 
result ; and the fact that it is so largely com- 
posed of scholars and of scientific men ; the fact 
that it subjects to the severest tests all the evi- 
dence brought before it, — are weighty arguments 
with the general public. The methods employed 
by the society have also stimulated new lines 
of inquiry and have assisted in developing a 
philosophic as well as a scientific approach to 
the subject. It is most important that the 
great truth be established in its wholeness. 
The average conception of Spiritualism, at 
present, is that it consists of a belief in me- 
diumship ; and that the line of differentiation 
between those who are and who are not Spirit- 
ualists consists solely in those who seek the 
phenomena of mediumship and those who do 
not. Nothing could be more rudimentary than 
this conception. The philosophy of Spiritualism 
is the philosophy of the nature and destiny of the 
soul. It is the philosophy of eternal life. It 
must be sought within. There are people who 
will assert that they have spent large amounts 



138 The Spiritual Significance. 

of both time and money "going to mediums," 
over a long period of years, but they " have 
never gotten anything satisfactory." Most 
certainly not. As well might those who are 
ignorant of the rudiments of mathematics 
consult the calculations of an astronomer. 
The elementary necessity is to learn something 
of the nature and the powers of the spiritual 
and the psychic nature, — the spiritual being the 
higher principle and the psychic nature being 
its manifestation. It is necessary to understand 
the laws of karma and of vibration. Karma, 
simply speaking, is simply the working out of 
causes. And its law is expressed in the words : 
" Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also 
reap." But the sowing and reaping on the 
spiritual plane differs greatly from that on 
the material plane. If a man sow wheat in the 
early spring, he cannot reap it until the sun- 
shine and showers of three or four months have 
caused it to germinate and grow and ripen. 
But he may sow and reap on the spiritual plane 
in five minutes. Time has no measure on the 
spiritual side. 

For instance : Supposing that a man is greatly 



Vision and Achievement 139 

annoyed and irritated by the occurrence of a given 
thing. The occurrence that annoys him is in his 
karma, and sometime and somewhere he has 
sown the cause of which this is the effect. It 
may take him a lifetime to work it out ; or by 
the use of concentration and meditation — which 
is really prayer — he may at once, in a minute, 
free himself from this bondage to an annoyance, 
and all this is essential to understand the life of 
spirituality. 

It is this life of spirituality, in its close rela- 
tions with the Unseen, that Canon Wilberforce 
constantly teaches in his great sermons at West- 
minster Abbey. Kant, that finest and most 
subtle of seers, predicted that a time was at 
hand in a not remote future when there should be 
experienced "a communion actual and indisso- 
luble " between spirits clothed in flesh and spirits 
clothed in fairer forms. We stand on the very 
threshold of the general realization of this truth. 

The acceptance of the one most important law 
that has been revealed to the world since the 
time of Christ grows larger, broader, and more 
universal daily. Even those who accepted the 
philosophy find they had not believed too much, 



140 The Spiritual Significance. 

but too little. The ethereal world is apparently 
in entire correspondence with the physical world. 
As a condition and not a locality it exists side 
by side; even more, it actually interpenetrates 
all this physical world, and it thus presents to us 
a realm of potency which, if we can but learn to 
use, will enable us to render our lives here far 
more significant and useful. 

In the winter of 1896-97 Dr. Elmer Gates in 
Washington made a series of significant experi- 
ments. He had prepared a small room hardly 
larger than a cell in which neither light nor 
sound could possibly enter. Wall after wall 
covered with various prepared surfaces enclosed 
it, and once within one might, indeed, well defy 
all the sights and sounds of the external world. 
It was these that he desired to shut out and to 
thus create for himself a sanctuary for higher 
vibrations. The experiment offered him a num- 
ber of curious results, one of which was the find- 
ing that on thus excluding all sense vibrations^ he 
could "tap," so to speak, any subject he wished 
and draw information regarding it ; whether 
music, mathematics, science, or invention. 
The explanation suggests itself. We are now 



Vision and Achievement 141 

in and of the spiritual worid, only that we are 
imprisoned in the senses. It is as if a man were 
nailed up in a box placed in a room. The man 
would be in the room as well as the persons who 
were walking about on the floor, only that, con- 
fined by a denser medium, he would be shut out 
from those who were not so confined. Con- 
centration is merely the shutting out of the 
sense perception, the escaping from the im- 
prisonment of physical limitations. But the 
higher form is not the experiment of enclos- 
ing one's self in a barrier excluding sight and 
sound ; or fixing the eye upon any special object 
to induce a kind of self-hypnotization, but rather 
to keep one's thought, one's conscious life, contin- 
ually in the heavenly world. The assertion in 
Psalms that no evil can assail the man whose 
heart is stayed upon the Lord is merely this 
truth expressed in other terms. 

"But this is not practical or possible," cries 
some one. " It is necessary to keep the thought 
fixed on one's work." 

Is there not a way? May not the teacher 
going to his school, instead of falling into anxious 
meditation or anxiety over his work or circum- 



142 The Spiritual Significance. 

stances, lift up his heart instead to the Lord with 
gratitude that he may co-operate and aid in any 
degree in the great work of enlarging and illumi- 
nating and developing life ? Let him enter on his 
work with this thought alone, and how uplifted 
will he be ; how wonderfully helped and invigor- 
ated by invisible influences, by unseen helpers. 
His heart is " stayed upon the Lord ; " in other 
words, he has gone into the spiritual world ; 
he has stepped upon a higher plane, and he is 
in the marvellous currents of spiritual life. 

Conditions are plastic. They are as clay in 
the hands of the potter. Everything one de- 
sires is in solution, as it were, in the air. The 
only danger is the spiritual danger of choosing 
that which, however desirable, is not really best 
for us, and this danger is obviated by holding 
all things to the one perfect standard of the 
mind stayed upon God. Life is simply a suc- 
cession of conditions. One need not in the 
least wait for death in order to enter on the 
conditions of the spiritual world. He has but 
to live in the spirit now ; that is, as he goes to 
the plough, the office, the school, or the labora- 
tory, — whatever his work or place, — he has 



Vision and Achievement. 143 

but to harmonize himself as being glad and 
joyful to co-operate with the divine power that 
is over all in whatever way he can, and the 
spiritual life, thus beginning to grow, will so 
increase that he shall come to live the life of 
spiritual freedom ; to dominate, rather than to be 
controlled by circumstances ; to transcend his 
limitations. We are entering upon a time when 
all this is far more easy than ever before. We 
are entering upon a higher round of life where 
we shall soon be in easy and natural communion 
with our friends and companions in the Unseen. 
Meantime, even now we may talk to them, and 
circumstances and results will prove to us that 
they have heard and understood what we say. 

"I should fear for a revealed religion in- 
capable of expansion according to the needs 
of man," wrote Mrs. Browning in one of her 
earnest letters. 

"What comes from God has life in it, and 
certainly from all the growth of living things, 
spiritual growth cannot be excepted. . . . What 
are these intelligences, separated, yet relating 
and communicating ? What is this state ? . . . 
No truth can be dangerous. What if Jesus 



144 The Spiritual Significance. 

Christ be taken for a medium, do you say? 
Well, -what then ? As a perfect man, He pos- 
sessed, I conclude, the full complement of a 
man's faculties. But if He walked on the sea 
as a medium; if the virtue went out of Him 
as a mesmeriser, — He also spoke the words 
which never man spoke ; was born for us and 
died for us and rose from the dead as the Lord 
God our Saviour. The whole theory of Spirit- 
ualism, all the phenomena, are strikingly con- 
firmatory of revelation; nothing strikes me 
more than that. Hume's argument against 
miracles (a strong argument) disappears before 
it, and Strauss's conclusions from a priori asser- 
tion of impossibility fall in pieces at once. . . . 
We are entering on a reformation far more in- 
terior than Luther's." 

The knowledge of the higher laws enables 
one so to live that he need never rail at fate. 
He can learn so to order his life as not to 
fill his harvest bin with Sodom apples, but with 
luscious fruit ; he can discover a chart by which 
to set sail on rough seas; he can preserve the 
fine cord of love from wear and jar and fret, 
and not, instead, break it. All spiritual aspira- 



Vision and Achievement. 145 

tioa and ndeavor has its corresponding physical 
and scientific basis. It is needful only to learu 
the law, — to so live that one may hear for him- 
self the Voice. 

" Harken ! Harken I 
God speaketh to thy soul." 

These words are not merely a poetic fancy, 
but an actual fact. God speaks to every one, 
and it is the responsibility of life to so live that 
one may hear. 

It is curious to trace the way in which this 
truth has manifested itself all through the ages. 
It is the secret of the "mortification of the 
flesh" enjoined on the early Christians. It is 
the underlying principle of all Delsarte train- 
ing, of all the work of the schools of expres- 
sion, and all forms of physical training, whether 
consciously recognized or not. "Deny thyself 
till life is spent." Deny the lower propensities 
and cultivate the higher. It is not that the 
enjoyments or indulgences of the senses are of 
themselves invariably wrong; it is simply that 
if the lower keep one from the higher, he would 
then do well to sacrifice the lesser and the 
temporary to the greater and the permanent. 
10 



146 The Spiritual Significance. 

It is entirely possible to so live that the 
psychic body shall take command, as it were; 
shall live its own free, outgiving life in its 
infinite energy. By auto-suggestion one may 
transfer all the consciousness of effort to the 
psychic body, where effort becomes, — not 
fatigue, as with the physical body, but expres- 
sion and achievement, which is a joy and not 
an exertion. The secret of being always in 
good health, always full of exhilaration and 
energy, is to live in the psychic rather than in 
the physical body. The former has its infinite 
store of energy which can be drawn upon in 
proportion as the physical body is kept sub- 
ordinated by the minimum of food and by ex- 
ercise and air, and by demanding constantly the 
supply of spiritual strength. 

The true nature of sleep is not, as has been 
ordinarily believed, a provision for bodily rest, 
but rather a provision for spiritual refreshment. 
All the time it is the spiritual man with whom 
we have to do. It has long been said that 
mind controls the body, and governs all things, 
but a clearer conception of the truth thus 
embodied is to say that the spiritual self, the 



Vision and Achievement. 147 

spiritual man, the real being, that is transiently 
clothed with a physical body, controls and gov- 
erns and determines. Instead of saying, "My 
mind controls conditions," let us frankly and 
clearly say, "/ control conditions." The con- 
ception of the "mind'* is hazy and indefinite; 
but the conception of an individual in the 
psychic body, complete in form as is the body 
we see, — and tenanting this visible body which 
is its means of relation to the natural world, — 
this conception is clear and simple and rational. 
"The kingdom of heaven is the kingdom of 
motives." It follows that action is there born, 
and that terrestrial effects are the result, the 
manifestation of celestial causes. 

In a sermon of great power preached by Eev. 
Dr. E. Winchester Donald, the rector of Trinity 
Church in Boston, — a discourse of singular illu- 
mination, — he found his text in the words that 
godliness profiteth a man, " having promise of the 
life that now is as well as that which is to come." 
Dr. Donald did not hesitate forcibly to present 
the argument in its relation to the present life. 
Godliness is profitable. It is the insurer of 
those favorable external conditions which en- 



148 The Spiritual Significance, 

able a man to live his life honestly, uprightly, 
generously; the life that wins the respect of 
the community, the estimation of the civilized 
world, and that thus makes itself the foun- 
dation, the basis for the development of the 
higher spiritual and the angelic states in the 
infinite progression. Dr. Donald taught that 
the spiritual life, the life of godliness, is the 
only real life. Man is designed for it. He is 
a spiritual being. When he lives the life of 
godliness, he is in harmony with the environ- 
ment of his real nature. Godliness is profit- 
able for the life that now is, because this is, 
now and here, the spiritual life, and all its 
treasures and aids are the manifestation of 
spiritual forces. Temporarily liberated by sleep, 
man returns to his native atmosphere, and par- 
takes of the conditions that sustain him. 

For more than half a century a connected 
body of evidence has been given to the world, 
in constantly increasing intelligence and cohe- 
rency, testifying to the personal communication 
possible between spirit and spirit from the realm 
of the Unseen to that of the Seen. This mass 
of evidence has been, as Dr. Alfred Russel 



Vision and Achievement. 149 

Wallace says, " tested and examined by sceptics 
of every grade of incredulity, men in every way 
qualified to detect imposture or to discover nat- 
ural causes, — trained physicists, medical men, 
lawyers, and men of business, — but in every 
case the investigators have either retired baffled 
or become converts." 

All progress, scientific and moral, finds its 
unity in the recognition that two orders of life 
are in direct relation, and producing correspond- 
ing effects, — one in the Seen, one in the 
Unseen ; that these two realms are interpene- 
trated, even in that close way in which the 
psychic and the physical bodies are interpene- 
trated while a man remains in the physical 
world. It is more than two great realms in cor- 
respondence to each other like the two hemis- 
pheres on earth; it is interpenetration. The 
great inventions are simply the recognition by 
certain minds, like Edison, Marconi, Tesla, of 
ideas revealed to them from the unseen realm. 
The larger and more intelligent is the recogni- 
tion of this companionship about us of those who 
have gone on into the Unseen, the more exalted 
does the quality of personal life become. 



150 The Spiritual Significance. 

" Immediate knowledge of God is our normal 
state of existence," said Rev. Dr. McKenzie, in 
the opening lecture of a series on ^* The Divine 
Forces in the Universe," delivered before the 
Lowell Institute in Boston ; a series of lectures 
whose treatment was hardly less sublime than 
the subject. Of all the great messages that 
have been given from that platform consecrated 
to high thought, none could be more remarkable 
than that given by this celebrated New England 
divine. " Immediate knowledge of God is 
man's normal state of existence," — that sen- 
tence is the keynote of life ; the point of de- 
parture in all philosophy. To know God ; that 
is, to comprehend the laws and their workings 
which God has made, in this lies the one object 
of man's existence on earth. He does not come 
here to buy or to sell ; to produce great enter- 
prises in commerce, in politics, in those inven- 
tions which enter into and co-operate with the 
laws of nature; not primarily does he come to 
this world for any of these; but — to develop 
the powers of his own soul. All these great 
and important activities are means to an end, 
and that end is spiritual development. The 



Vision and Achievement, 151 

important inventions and enterprises that sub- 
due a continent ; that tunnel its mountains ; 
that build towns and cities in its forests ; that 
perform marvellous results in civil engineering, 
in the bridging of rivers and chasms ; the carry- 
ing of railways up a mountain-side ; the im- 
provement of harbors and of the mouths of 
rivers; the great inventions of the electrical 
world that carry a cable under the ocean ; that 
convey the sound of the human voice a thousand 
miles ; that with a battery of concealed magnets 
hold a battleship imprisoned by this subtle and 
invisible force as completely as if a granite wall 
had been built about her ; the beam of light that 
makes conversation easy at ten miles' distance ; 
the graphophone, that can produce the hypnotic 
trance as well as a professional hypnotist, per- 
sonally ; the electric wire that can convey form 
and color, — producing a picture, as well as 
sound; all these and other marvels, which are 
not less marvellous because they have grown to 
be familiar appliances in daily life, — what are 
they all in their last analysis but the manifes- 
tations of the power of spirit over matter ? Of 
the way in which man, made in the image of 



152 The Spiritual Significance. 

the Divine, is calculated to control — not to be 
controlled by — the laws of nature. 

" In the beginning — God." Later — man, 
into whom God breathed, and man became — 
a living spirit ! What is our conception of God ? 
A living spirit, or, rather, a spirit who is life ; 
the divine Source of all the life of the universe. 
If man, then, became a living spirit, by God's 
personal creation of him as such, how exalted is 
his place in nature, how significant his responsi- 
bility in the world of action, which is always 
and entirely the moral world! It is the* moral 
universe that holds in solution and controls the 
material universe. Man, then, is a part of the 
divine force, and it is his province to co-operate 
with God in the development of spiritual lawSo 
" The soul," says Emerson, " has plentiful powers 
and direct effects," and these powers may be 
developed into an almost infinite source of 
energy by those who enter into a knowledge 
of the law. Now, the initiation by which one 
achieves the power to so relate himself to the 
universal energy as to largely overcome the 
limitations of fatigue and of time is a very 
positive and not at all a merely passive matter. 



Vision and Achievement, 153 

Spiritual receptivity is not a negative attitude. 
It is not holding up languidly an empty cup, 
expecting that sometime and some way it will 
be filled without exertion on our part. Spiritual 
receptivity is not to be regarded as a matter of 
emptiness ; but, rather, the condition of the very 
highest receptivity is that of the highest degree 
of spirituality. When electricity flies from the 
static to the dynamic, leaps across any gulf or 
through any obstacle, it is not because the ob- 
ject to which it leaps is inert, but rather because 
it is in a highly charged state which attracts the 
corresponding potency to itself. This illustration 
exactly portrays the condition of receiving from 
the atmosphere this current of infinite and ir- 
resistible energy, which enables one to achieve 
a vast amount of work in a very little time, and 
without exhaustion to himself. 

To come into this condition is a work involv- 
ing the entire threefold force of body, mind, and 
soul. While the spiritual man inhabits a physical 
body, the condition of the body must afiect, pro- 
portionately, the receptivity of spiritual power. 
The body is the temple of the indwelling spirit, 
and it has laws which must be obeyed. The 



154 The Spiritual Significance, 

body is the result of its range of attraction. It 
is constantly changing, old atoms being thrown 
off and new ones attracted, and because of this, 
one can make his body what he will. It may 
be gross and heavy, or it may be made light and 
subtle. As its only use is as the vehicle of 
spirit, the more light and agile and subtle it can 
be made, the better it fulfils that purpose. The 
factors in making it light and subtle are air, 
water, exercise, food, and thought. Fresh, pure 
air is one of heaven's best gifts, and no one is 
less appreciated. Not merely is it enjoyed by 
going out of doors, but by keeping every room 
constantly supplied with pure, fresh, life-giving 
air. The cold bath on rising in the morning is 
— in its effects, at least — almost as much a con- 
dition of spiritual as it is physical vigor. It 
may be made far more efficacious by impressing 
upon the subtle body the thought of the spiritual 
cleansing and renewal that is typified by the 
physical cleanliness. To direct the thought thus 
upon the purification of the spirit is to invest 
the bath with an intense current of magnetic 
power. The day is past w^hen it could be 
considered an absurdity to stamp the impress 



Vision and Achievement, 155 

of thought upon an external act. Let one 
plead, as he plunges into the cold, sparkling, 
invigorating water : *' Cleanse Thou me from 
secret faults." Let him assert to himself as he 
emerges : " I will arise in newness of life." The 
bath may be thus invested with fairly magic 
properties, and one is made anew and made 
alive, and every nerve responds to a higher 
range of vibration. It is not necessary to be 
an athlete in order to take sufficient exercise for 
the attainment of the finer state of life. The 
spirit in which one takes his walks in the open 
air is far more important than is their length, 
their frequency, or their duration. 

The question of food is always important, 
and the eating or abstaining from meat is not 
a merely arbitrary distinction, but is based on 
laws as exact as those of mathematics. Every 
substance has its own rate of vibration. The 
vibration of animal life is on a far lower scale 
than that- of human life. It is instinct with 
crude passions, fears, desires, all relating them- 
selves to a lower plane of existence. When 
this food, then, is taken into the human body, 
it sets up its own range of correspondences, and 



156 The Spiritual Significance. 

it builds up, — not the finer, the subtle^ and the 
ethereal body, but the coarser one. Food 
should really be taken for the subtle rather 
than for the physical body ; it should be of 
such a quality that the subtle body can ap- 
propriate the finer aroma. Food that is pure, 
light, wholesome, fits the body to respond, like 
a fine-tuned instrument, to the higher vibrations 
of spiritual energy. Food that is heavy and 
coarse unfits it to respond to this range, and 
thus clogs and imprisons the indwelling spirit. 
Once realizing this principle, man can determine 
for himself the quality and quantity of the foods 
that best fit him to express his higher life. 
There can be no arbitrary rules. Needs and 
powers vary with the individual, and each must, 
by test and experiment, determine for himself. 
The human organism is a chemical laboratory 
of the most complex variety, and the action 
and reaction of food depends upon a thousand 
things, inclusive of both physical and mental, 
which cannot be decided, in any authoritative 
way, by one for another. More potent, how- 
ever, than any one of these, and more potent 
than all combined, if multiplied a thousandfold. 



Vision and Achievement. 157 

is the factor of thought, " As a man thinketh, 
so is he." It is literally true. Thought shall 
determine his form, his bearing, his presence, his 
atmosphere. Thought shall also determine his 
power of commanding his life, rather than to 
accept it at the mere drift and mercy of circum- 
stances. 

" Soul's desire is means enow^ *' 

says Emerson. The soul's desire should con- 
trol the soul's progress. For the soul is the di- 
vine spark that remains in its high relation with 
the divine, and thus may be trusted. Mere 
desire on a lower plane has often to be denied 
and uprooted before progress can be made ; but 
the soul's desire is to be held supreme. 

To be able to '^ command our life ; " to recog- 
nize the forecast, and choose, and select, and 
combine events to the highest purpose, — is a 
perfectly normal condition, and it is one which 
it is man's duty to achieve by this high and har- 
monious living. 

The physical body corresponds with the phys- 
ical plane of life. It is manageable on that plane 
alone. The astral or ethereal body corresponds 



158 The Spiritual Significance, 

with the ethereal or the astral plane, and may 
be controlled — that is, held manageable — on 
that plane. And what is that plane ? It is 
the plane of all the mental and moral life ; of the 
spiritual life, — which is, of course, the real, the 
essential life of the individual as seen apart from 
physical functions. A man may eat and sleep 
well and yet be hardly alive in the true sense. 
He does not Uve—m the true significance of 
the term — only just in the proportion in which 
he lives in thought. Now thought not only 
controls the ethereal or astral body; it creates 
it. The quality of that body, whether fine or 
coarse, corresponds to the quality of thought. 
A life lived in pure purpose and noble aspiration 
creates a refined and beautiful astral body. A 
life lived in noble aspiration enables the mental 
power to so dominate this astral body that it 
becomes, upon its o\vn plane, manageable and 
perfect in its service to the real being who 
dwells in it. Now, when one realizes himself as 
a spiritual being dwelling in his astral or spiritual 
body, which is encased, but not necessarily wholly 
imprisoned, by his physical body he is already a 
conscious inhabitant of tlie world of spirits. He 



Vision and Achievement. 159 

can hold converse with those in the ethereal 
world, spirit to spirit, just as perfectly as with 
those in the physical life, to whom he speaks 
viva voce and whose response he hears. Sight 
and hearing and response of thought and feeling 
are faculties of the spirit. To a far less degree 
— far less keen and fine, and far less swift in re- 
cognition and response — they are also organs of 
the physical body ; but only in a dim and muffled 
and imperfect way compared to their greater per- 
fection in the ethereal organism. The physical 
body simply provides a temporary seclusion from 
the great realities of the ethereal world, so that, 
by means of this seclusion, man may gain a cer- 
tain experience to be found only on the physical 
plane. But the real life is in the ethereal world, 
just as the real life to a youth or maiden is not 
in the temporary seclusion of college, where the 
larger world is shut out in order that certain 
phases of special development shall be attained, 
but awaits them after they leave this temporary 
environment for the larger and more significant 
one of active life. 

The conservation of energy is under the law 
of the correlation of forces. Nothing is lost that 



160 The Spiritual Significance. 

has ill it a spark of spiritual vitality. It emerges 
into other forms, and reappears in larger and 
fuller usefulness. All the material and mechani- 
cal side of life is rapidly changing to subtler and 
finer forms. In the new city houses the kitchen 
range is fed by gas, doing away with all the 
clumsiness of coal and kindlings, ashes and 
cinders. Horses are rapidly being displaced by 
the automobile. Wireless telegraphy is on its 
way to utterly supersede the wire, and it is no 
baseless fabric of a dream to say that telepathy 
will come to supersede the telephone and the 
postal service and wireless telegraphy, and that 
perhaps, even within the coming century, men 
will communicate by sending thought to thought 
from mind to mind independent of any visible 
means. 

We may reason from the past to the future 
and from the barbaric to the mediaeval ages ; 
from mediaeval to modern the mechanical side 
of civilization has grown finer and finer, and 
cruder forces have changed to the more subtle, 
just in proportion as 

" the thoughts of men have widened with the progress of 
the suns." 



Vision and Achievement. 161 

For every visible and tangible phase of life 
follows thought, and it cannot fail to be evident 
that thought is the divine element in humanity. 
So much thought, so much power. The two are 
indissolubly connected as cause and sequence. 
Again, the finer the thought, the higher it is in 
degree, so much finer and higher are the mani- 
fested results. The individual is enabled to be 
useful, important to the activities of the world, 
or the reverse, just in corresponding degree to 
the quality and force of his thought. One's 
individual life exteriorizes in proportion and in 
exact correspondence with this power. 

" As garment draws the garment's hem, 
Men their fortunes bring with them." 

The whole secret of life is in learning how 
to spiritualize the conditions ; thought, manifest- 
ing itself in energy and love, will then come 
to be the natural, daily experience of living 
in this purer atmosphere where it is the cre- 
ative power and where nothing is " retentive to 
the strength of spirit." More a,nd more are we 
learning to realize that what we have called two 
worlds, two lives, is, after all, only the evolution- 
11 



162 The Spiritual Significance. 

arj states of one life, which, as it develops and 
advances, creates constantly new conditions, new 
"worlds," so to speak. Even in this life on 
earth we see here that childhood has one world, 
youth another, and manhood still a new and 
larger one, all related to one another as a con- 
stantly progressive sequence of succeeding states, 
each of which depends for its conditions and its 
quality on the state that has preceded it. Each 
depends on a perfect integrity of life, an unfalter- 
ing obedience to the moral law which is the only 
foundation on which to rear the superstructure 
of the life of spirituality. 

Nothing more unerringly registers the degree 
of progress achieved than the degree to which 
faculties of communication are advanced. From 
the slow and uncertain intercourse carried on by 
means of the stagecoach and the sailing vessel 
to that by wireless telegraphy is a far cry, yet 
it is no farther than the distance registered by 
the difference between the civilization of the 
days of the stagecoach and sailing ships and the 
civilization of the age of the biograph, the auto- 
mobile, wireless telegraphy, and telepathy. 

The latest great project in civil engineering is 



Vision and Achievement. 1C3 

the idea of a distinguished French civil engineer, 
M. Jean Berlier. He considers that an inter- 
continental tunnel, uniting Spain and Morocco, 
prolonged by a railway from Tangiers to Lalla 
Maghnia, would prove invaluable for the success- 
ful development of the African colonies of France. 
From soundings taken by him, M. Berlier has 
proved the existence of a compact rock forma- 
tion across the straits, which guarantees solidity 
and impermeability. The undertaking, he says, 
would be no more difficult than the piercing of 
Mont Cenis, Saint Gothard, the Arlberg, or the 
Simplon. He adds that if the diplomatic obsta- 
cles are not greater than the natural, success is 
certain. This plan comprehends the connection 
of the lines of the Algerian railway system and 
the extension from Tangiers to Lalla Maghnia. 
The Spanish government has already consented, 
and the consent of the Moors is anticipated. 

A project, less defined, to tunnel the straits 
between the extreme northwest point of North 
America and Asia is in the air, making it 
possible that future travellers will journey to 
India by way of Alaska ; and if the British Chan- 
nel could be tunnelled at the narrowest point 



164 The Spiritual Significance. 

between England and France, — and it is only 
twenty-eight miles between Dover and Calais, — 
the civilized world would be in tlie way of very 
swift communication and travelling facilities. 
Nationally and individually facilities of communi- 
cation mean facilities for better mutual under- 
standing and closer and finer comprehension of 
mutual needs. The extension of facilities for 
communication means the extension of mutual 
sympathies and the promotion of kindness. And 
kindness is, as the poet well tells us, the chief 
good : — 

" ' What is the real good ? ' 
I asked in a musing mood. 

* Order,' said the law court ; 

* Knowledge,' said the school; 
< Truth,' said the wise man ; 

' Pleasure,' said the fool ; 

* Love,' said the maiden ; 

* Beauty,' said the page ; 

' Freedom,' said the dreamer; 
' Home,' said the sage ; 

* Fame,' said the soldier ; 

' Equity,' the seer. 
Spake my heart full sadly : 

' The answer is not here.' 
Then within my bosom 
Softly this I heard : — 

* Each heart holds the secret : 

Kindness is the word.' " 



Vision and Achievement, 1G5 

Better than wealth or fame or learning is that 
sweet and responsive sympathy that not only 
gives the best treasures of life, but that kindles 
and stimulates, and creates an atmosphere in 
which all the nobler feelings and more po- 
tent energies find their room for growth and 
achievement. Like all the best gifts of life, 
kindness is within the power of every one to 
give, and it is the chief treasure of every one to 
receive. 

Existence is constantly conditioned, and we 
advance with orderly precision by means of 
spiritual achievements. Assimilating into life 
the elements of hope, faith, and love, we ad- 
vance into the environment that corresponds 
with this higher quality. This orderly advance 
will be found one of almost mathematical preci- 
sion. It is hindered, is broken, by not keep- 
ing faith with one's plans and promises. The 
habit of breaking or neglecting engagements, 
if indulged at all, grows on one with fatal 
facility. It will be found one that throws 
the entire environment into disastrous con- 
fusion. The train of causes set in process 
by an act or intention is broken off by the 



166 The Spiritual Significance. 

failure to keep faith with some other intention 
or promise; and the result is much as if a 
gardener should nip the buds of the flowers that 
were to be, and thus prevent their blossoming. 
Each act or resolution of one's life has its re- 
sults in posse. These results are the natural 
evolution, but if they are suddenly frustrated 
the entire mental atmosphere and environ- 
ment is thrown into confusion, and life does 
not proceed to its possible achievements. 

Believe, then, in all noble and beautiful ful- 
filments ; keep faith with the ideals that reveal 
themselves ; keep all the strands of purpose 
definite and disentangled; so shall life be fair, 
and proceed in the way of divine evolution. 

"What differentiates us one from another is 
the relation we hold with the Infinite," well 
said Maurice Maeterlinck. Now this relation 
is capable of infinite enlargement and multipli- 
cation. The higher or the lower life is wholly 
determined by the strength and the number of 
these relations. In these is the key to knowl- 
edge and to a clear recognition of the friends 
in the Unseen. Between spirit and spirit are 
direct and mysterious relations that transcend 



Vision and Achievement, 167 

time and space, and which can be developed in 
the conscious life in an increasing degree. 

To one who glances with Dr. Alfred Russel 
Wallace backward over this " wonderful cen- 
tury," and over the panorama of the centuries 
that lie behind it, the review suggests to how 
remarkable a degree the progress of the times 
keeps pace with the demands of humanity. As 
man advances, things advance. Circumstances 
are his servitors. His life attains to a degree of 
energy that demands swifter transit, and steam 
supersedes the coach, and the electric motor 
supersedes steam. He requires better illumi- 
nation, and the candle succeeds the torch, the 
lamp the candle, gas the lamp, and electricity 
succeeds gas. His life achieves a rate of energy 
which requires swift communication, and the 
steamer supersedes the sailing vessel ; the sub- 
marine cable supersedes the steamer ; the tele- 
graph supersedes the postal service. A still 
higher degree of achievement requires even 
swifter and more subtle means, and a Tesla 
or Marconi discover an hitherto unknown force 
in the universe, and we have wireless telegraphy ; 
the powers of man's own soul develop, and 



168 The Spiritual Significance, 

we have telepathy. Man achieves a certain 
breadth of view and demands to know the mar- 
vels of the universe. The result of the demand 
is the invention of the telescope; the result 
of increasing knowledge and demand is the 
further perfecting of the telescope till we have 
the Lick and the Yerkes, and the extension of 
both by means of the spectroscope, with its 
wonderful revelations regarding the true nature 
of the Pole Star that open a new chapter in the 
romance of astronomy. The Pole Star had been 
regarded as the one — and, indeed, the only — 
fixed and absolute in the universe. Wliatever 
changed, it was steadfast. Whatever revolutions 
or process of evolution the vast glittering firma- 
ment underwent, this beacon light was constant. 
Suddenly Professor Campbell of the Lick Ob- 
servatory makes a wonderful discovery. The 
Pole Star is not one body, but three. It is one 
of an intricate triple system, all of which are 
in constant and rapid motion of a complicated 
order, advancing and receding, and two of the 
three are revolving about the other. 

Now these two additional and newly dis- 
covered stars cannot be called " new stars " any 



Vision and Achievement. 169 

more than any form of affirmation of the su- 
premacy of the spiritual life can be called " new 
thought." A half-century ago Doepler demon- 
strated the principle by means of which this 
discovery has been made. If the star is ap- 
proaching the earth in its orbit, the light waves 
shown by the spectroscope are shortened ; if it is 
receding, they are lengthened. With the magic 
aid that the spectroscope lends to the telescope, 
Professor Campbell has discovered the nature of 
the movements of the Pole Star. At first he 
only inferred that from the curious movements 
it must be acted upon by companion stars. 
To the great thirty-six-inch telescope of the 
Lick Observatory, poised high above the clouds 
on a peak of Mount Hamilton, the spectroscope 
was attached, and at last, by the most delicate 
reasoning and mathematical measurements, the 
theory suggested was verified. 

Man demanded records of events and thought, 
and hieroglyphics grew to language, and manu- 
scripts, laboriously written, found their evolution 
in the invention of the printing-press. The first 
crude and mechanical process has been merged 
into the present splendid system of typographical 



170 The Spiritual Significance. 

art. Thus does thought create in the ethereal 
world, and its manifestations actualize themselves 
in the physical world. " Thought lets us into re- 
alities," as Emerson has so truly said. Thought, 
vision, penetrates into the ethereal world and 
constructs mentally or *^ builds in the astral," 
as a Theosophist would say. After any object 
or purpose is clearly held in thought, its precipi- 
tation^ in tangible and visible form, is merely 
a question of time. Columbus saw in vision a 
path through the trackless waters around the 
world. The vision always precedes, and itself 
determines the realization. 

The absolute continuity of life, persisting 
through all changes of condition and form, is the 
great truth on which to base all plans and con- 
ceptions of living. For one may make his plans 
not for time, but for eternity ; not for a period 
probably terminating within fourscore years or so, 
but for an immortal and infinite extension. The 
finest word that has ever been given regarding 
that progress which is called " growing old " 
was that spoken by Mrs. Livermore, when she 
said, in reference to being on the eve of her 
seventy-eighth birthday, that she was not going 



Vision and Achievement, 171 

down hill ; she was climbing up and approaching 
the summit. Here is the true view of life. 
The close of the temporary physical sojourn 
is the entering into a more positive and real 
and radiant life, the continuity unbroken and 
rich, with all the wealth of intellectual and 
spiritual treasure that has been gathered here. 
It is as logical to begin new studies, to en- 
ter on new achievements, at seventy as at seven- 
teen. One does not die because of death. 
The mere change of form has no power over 
the spiritual being who has been sojourning 
here, except to liberate the energy and to give 
it the stimulus of new and finer conditions. 
No life is so fortunate that it is free from diffi- 
culties and perplexity. A truer reading would, 
indeed, be that no life is so unfortxiwdte as to be 
free from these, for the soul gains the strength 
of the hardship it overcomes, and thus its hard- 
ship is good rather than ill fortune. That he 
who will keep on, true to the highest ideal that 
is revealed to him, through good report or evil 
report, through happiness or hardship, through 
delights or difficulties, — regarding these as 
purely incidental matters, as we regard a stormy 



172 The Spiritual Significance, 

day on which we are obliged to be out not 
desirable, but still as not a thing that should 
interfere at all with our duties or pleasures, — he 
who shall thus keep his pursued ideal in sight 
will lead a successful life, whatever its outward 
conditions. Success consists solely in the quali- 
ties developed, in the degree of spiritual life 
achieved. To be considerate, courteous, gener- 
ous, tender, and noble in thought and purpose, — • 
this is to be successful. To be selfish, inconsid- 
erate, to lack sympathy and comprehension, — 
this is to make of life a failure, whatever riches 
may be amassed, whatever honors or acclaim 
may be won. 

Nor need one wait for what we call the future 
life to enter into the kingdom of heaven. " The 
kingdom of God for any soul is that condition 
anywhere in the universe when God is that soul's 
king, where it seeks and obeys the highest, 
where it loves truth and duty more than comfort 
and luxury," said Bishop Brooks. There are an 
increasing number of people who are living 
daily in that kingdom ; who are pressing for- 
ward in the identification of the divine laws of 
the universe with the divine laws of the truer 



Vision and Achievement. 173 

life, for it is a fatal error in conception to rele- 
gate the spiritual life of the spiritual world to 
some unknown realm after the change called 
death. It is here and now. We are spiritual 
beings dwelling in a spiritual world to just that 
degree in which we live in spirituality. To say 
that we are spiritual beings now and here is, 
however, an assertion that requires modification. 
One might as well assert himself to be de facto a 
scholar, a savant, before he had achieved scholar- 
ship. Rather should it be said : We are poten- 
tially spiritual beings, for spirituality of life is not 
a gift but an achievement; not a phrase, but 
an experience. It is the mainspring of an energy 
of purpose, the force unresistible. Darwin re- 
vealed to the world the great law of evolution 
operating on the physical plane. The same law 
operates on the spiritual plane with increased 
energy. Science is constantly conquering new 
territory, and advancing into what had hereto- 
fore been regarded as the region of unknown 
forces. The miracles of one decade are the 
utilities of the succeeding one. Scientific pro- 
gress proceeds in continually accelerated ratio, 
and at the present rate every decade does more 
than the work of the preceding century. 



174 The Spiritual Significance. 

When Dr. Henry Drmnmond gave to the 
world his illuminating book entitled " Natural 
Law in the Spiritual World," he opened the 
portals of higher enlightenment. " Science 
speaks to us, indeed, of much more than numbers 
of years," he says. " It defines degrees of life ; 
it explains a widening environment. It unfolds 
the relation between a widening environment and 
increasing complexity in organisms." 

In these words is indicated the true nature 
of the life beyond death, — a life of widening 
environment, of more positive and abounding 
energy, of deeper and of increasing significance. 
As humanity achieves its higher development the 
barriers between the Seen and the Unseen are con- 
quered and overcome. More and more will the 
two states of being meet and mingle. Already 
this world is experiencing the results of this 
facility of intercourse by means of telepathic 
communication from spirit to spirit, from mind 
to mind, in the greater ideas, the larger concep- 
tions, that manifest themselves under all forms 
of scientific activity. Already the world is full 
of its hints and prophecies of the grander life 
achieved in proportion to the degree of develop- 
ment, irrespective of the eventful change of 



Vision and Achievement. 175 

death, which is but one among the many proc- 
esses in evolutionary progress. 

Since such men as Prof. William James of 
Harvard University, Sir William Crookes, Mr. 
F. W. H. Myers, Professor Sidgwick, Dr. Richard 
Hodgson, Prof. Oliver Lodge, and many another 
noted name that might be added, unreservedly 
announce their convictions that there is inter- 
course between those in the Seen and in the 
Unseen worlds, it may be permitted to introduce 
here a communication made on May 9, 1890, by 
Horace Greeley, to an individual whose name, 
if one were to mention it here, would carry the 
absolute assurance of authority. The theory of 
communication between those in the Seen and 
in the Unseen so profoundly interested Mr. Glad- 
stone that in a conversation with Mr. Myers in 
1885, the great statesman and premier of Eng- 
land said : — 

" It is the most important work which is being 
done in the world, by far the most important," 
he repeated, with a grave emphasis. To a well- 
known and distinguished officer of the United 
States Navy, Horace Greeley said through a 
communication by automatic writing : — 



176 The Spiritual Significance, 

" A new idea is making its way among the in- 
habitants of the earth which within a few years will 
become vividly familiar. My advanced ideas during 
my lifetime were considered the workings of a dis- 
torted brain, but they should have proven me, in- 
stead, to be a man capable of thought. In the 
present, greater enlightenment prevails, and within a 
comparatively brief time the science of intercommuni- 
cation and the philosophy of what may be termed 
this new religion will be the faith of the masses, — 
a faith not far removed from the power of the 
Catholic Church to-day. We on this side are all 
working for it. The means of this communication is 
by the gain of electric power in the universe, which 
has not ripened until this century. It will increase 
in the ages to come. It will be fully realized 
that death is the change to a higher life, on which 
we enter on an eternity of growth far beyond that 
of any idea man has yet been enabled to grasp. 
Minds as great as Aristotle failed to perceive the 
truth that will soon become universal. In his day 
the manifestations of spiritual life could not be per- 
ceived as in the present day. There was a lack of 
confirmation. Let the present progress in spiritual 
knowledge go on for another century, and death will 
have lost its stin^: and the grave its terror." 



Vision and Achievement, 177 

It need no longer be regarded as a chimerical 
idea to state clearly and earnestly the conviction 
of the greater reality of the life entered upon by 
the change of form whose process we call death. 
It is no longer chimerical to regard this life as one 
whose entire scenery and forces are as natural as 
those of our present life, and of a character which 
is indicated to us here by the recent advances 
and achievements of science, — by the electric 
cable, by the Rdntgen ray, by wireless telegraphy, 
by that wonderful invention, the telectroscope, 
shown in the Paris Exposition of 1900, by 
means of which the eye sees what is passing at 
a distance of hundreds of miles. All these in- 
ventions are simply the extension of our experi- 
mental knowledge into what was formerly held 
to be the unknown universe. There are excur- 
sions into the realm of higher potencies which 
pertain to the ethereal world, — the state of life 
just beyond this one. It is a tremendous fact 
if there exists side by side with us, so to speak, 
interpenetrating all our atmosphere, this other 
world in which are the causes that manifest 
themselves on our plane as effects; and if all 
the revelations of modern science within the 
12 



178 The Spiritual Significance. 

past ten years could be viewed aright, as the 
result of man's increased insight into the myste- 
ries of nature, his increased power to grasp the 
workings of law, — if these could be so viewed 
by the clerical teachers of the day, and these 
relations to the progress of mental and spiritual 
life made clear, — religion would become more 
truly the practical aid and illumination of daily 
life. 

Psycho-physical culture is a new phase of de- 
velopment which is claiming much attention, 
and which, if rightly understood, will work re- 
generation in man. Its object is simply making 
the body the perfect, flexible, responsive instru- 
ment of the spirit. The training consists in 
harmonic gymnastics and deep breathing, in 
light food, fresh air, and good sleep. So much 
for the physical side. On the mental side the 
quality of thought held is the all-important 
thing. The securing of restful sleep is the 
basis on w^hich to build the day's activities. 
The conditions of perfect sleep are mental and 
moral as well as physical, and require the har- 
monious adjustment of the physical and the 
spiritual natures. Auto-suggestion made just 



Vision and Achievement 179 

before sleep will hold a power so potent over the 
next day as to dominate its entire experiences. 
The astral world about us is plastic to thought, 
and can be stamped with any purpose, and 
thereby the range of all activities can be wisely 
controlled. This power of auto-suggestion at 
night to shape and direct the affairs and ex- 
periences of the succeeding day is marvellous 
in its aid to the higher life, and, as has already 
been noted, it operates on the three planes of 
the physical, the intellectual, and the spiritual. 
Psycho-physical culture is the essential knowl- 
edge on this new plane of advancement ; for 
science, which has measured space in the heavens, 
which has weighed the stars, which has found 
a way to speak over a distance of a thousand 
miles, and is soon to speak telephonically over 
the ocean ; which has invented the means for ex- 
tracting the iron scattered through tons of rock, 
buried deep in the everlasting hills, and has 
discovered the Rbntgen ray that shines through 
solid substance, — science has now, with the sub- 
blimest assertion of all, pushed its knowledge 
out beyond the limits of the physical life, and 
discovered the nature and the processes of the 



180 The Spiritual Significance. 

change called death, and the conditions beyond 
on which the soul enters. 

We learn that death is the process of liberat- 
ing the psychical (which is the real) body from 
the physical. Already the higher researches 
in physiology have found nerve fibres branching 
out that have no discernible use. They are 
sporadic, and not merged in those nerves that 
centre in ganglia and carry the sensations to or 
from the brain. The psychic investigation may 
form an hypothesis for these, — one that shall 
see in them the connecting link between the 
physical and the ethereal bodies. It is already 
proven that the ethereal body is affected by the 
food and habits of the physical, and it has long 
been realized through vague and unformulated 
experiences that sensations affect both bodies. 
This new discovery may offer the physical basis 
of the spiritual body, and thus of immortality. 

Dr. Elmer Gates has discovered that after 
exhausting the atmosphere in a tube of his 
invention (of a stronger power than the Crookes 
tube), — that after all the air is exhausted, some- 
tiling yet remains. And what is it ? The finer 
ether. And what is the purpose of this finer 



Vision and Achievement. 181 

ether ? It is the atmosphere of the ethereal 
body. The spiritual world is — where ? In the 
atmosphere, — in this inner ether which fills 
all space. Now, if there is another world cor- 
responding to our own all about us, and within 
this inner ether, what a tremendous fact this is ! 
What an important truth confronts us, if ever 
at hand is this extension of a finer counterpart 
of all this realm ! And if this, too, is not the 
shadow, but the substance ; not the dream, but 
the reality. " For the things that are seen are 
temporal, but those that are not seen are eter- 
nal." All results of research in art or science 
pale before the importance of clearly discerning 
the truth regarding this corresponding sphere 
which is the realm of causes, while the one in 
which we live is the realm of effects. 

The animal, the vegetable, and the mineral 
kingdoms have their ethereal correspondences. 
Interpenetrated with this universe — as the psy- 
chical body is interpenetrated with the physical 
body — is the ethereal universe ; and when liber- 
ated from the physical body and the physical 
world, man enters on what seems to him a 
counterpart — only far more beautiful — of the 



182 The Spiritual Significance. 

world and the life he has left. There is no 
violent and extraordinary change; indeed, the 
first feeling is of wonder that the change is so 
little ; the aspect of the " undiscovered country " 
so natural. 

" J^ow there is a perfect form," writes an authority 
from the other side of life, ^' composed of magnetism 
and electricity, and the magnetic form and the elec- 
tric form bear the soul within them. The soul is 
the guiding principle of the spiritual body, and 
it clothes itself with magnetism and electricity. 
"When the soul leaves the physical body, it takes the 
magnetic and electric body with it, for these are in- 
separable. Magnetism is invisible, except under cer- 
tain conditions, and electricity is also an invisible 
substance, except under certain conditions; and if 
man did not have a magnetic and an electric body, 
there would be no heat within him, for it is the 
uniting of magnetism and electricity that causes all 
light and heat. When the magnetism and electricity 
are withdrawn, the physical body decays, for its 
animating principle, all that could tliink, see, and 
hear, has left it. All that thinks, hears, sees, or 
feels, the spiritual body retains, for these are of the 
soul and not of the material body. The soul is the 



Vision and Achievement, 183 

animating principle of this electric and magnetic 
body, and it can move with the swiftness of elec- 
tricity, or gently float, or remain quiescent." 

It is more than suspected by scientists that the 
ether is electric in its properties. The magnetic 
waves of the atmosphere have long been known 
to science, and there is undoubtedly, in the at- 
mosphere itself, all the combined qualities of 
the two worlds interpenetrated. 

The first state after death is no more a final 
one than is this present condition. It is a state 
of growth, of progress, of hope, and of faith. 
Truth and love are its forces, and there is no 
reason why these forces should not be the fac- 
tors of life here as well. The acceptance of 
the great fundamental truth that life is one and 
indivisible is the basis of hope and of happiness, 
and ofi'ers the true incentive to progress. The 
acceptance of the true philosophy of the succeed- 
ing states and conditions of life alleviates and 
will, in the end, conquer the pain and sorrow 
now caused by death. This one reason alone, 
aside from its potent aid to progress, would be 
sufficient to commend it to the minds of all. 



184 The Spiritual Significance. 

The poet's insight proclaims the truth in the 
lines, — 

" The spirit world around this world of sense 
Floats like an atmosphere." 

There is the closest analogy between the 
advances made into the realm of unknown forces 
by science and those made by spiritual percep- 
tion and penetration and psychic research into 
the realm of spiritual knowledge. When such a 
preacher as Canon Wilberforce compares the 
operation of intercessory prayer with that of 
wireless telegraphy, it lends authority to the 
statement, and gives to us new trust in what 
may perhaps be called the genius of this age, — 
the new movement ushering in a larger and a 
truer conception of the divine laws that govern 
the relation of man to man and of man to God. 
The initial factor in this movement, the key to 
its entire significance, is found in the recognition 
of thought as a force. The recognition of this 
truth revolutionizes all the relations of life. It 
takes precedence even of accelerated telegraphy 
and of wireless telegraphy, and it leads inevitably 
to the next step, — the realization that if thought 



Vision and Achievement, 185 

can leap from mind to mind here in the physical 
world, how much more easily can it leap from 
mind to mind between the physical and the 
ethereal worlds. 

Although the Christian world and the Chris- 
tian church have always taught the potency and 
the privilege of prayer from the very initiation of 
Christ's kingdom on earth, humanity has yet to 
learn its infinite potency. Why should not inter- 
cession by means of prayer be part of God's 
regularized working as much as wireless teleg- 
raphy? questions Canon Wilberforce. It will 
come to be so recognized. In rare instances 
already men have understood the law, and have 
availed themselves of it. There is more than one 
institution entirely supported by the power of 
this intercession. Prayer is the most practical 
force in the world. " Why should it not be a 
natural law," asks Dr. Wilberforce, "and none 
the less spiritual because natural ? Such forces 
do exist, — call them thought transference, 
psychic sympathy, spiritual affinity, what you 
will. These forces of influence between man and 
man, acting independently of distance, are rapidly 
claiming recognition from the physical investi- 



186 The Spiritual Significance, 

gator. Why should not intercession be one of 
these secret affinities, appertaining to the highest 
part of man, and acting by divine natural law, 
directly upon the object prayed for, originating 
from the divine nature in you, and passing, full 
of the infinite resources of God, directly to the 
one for whom you pray ? Moreover, who shall 
dare to limit this divine outflow of spiritual 
sympathy, this wireless current of God's dynam- 
ics, to the experience of this earthly life ? Why 
should any suppose that it cannot pass into the 
spirit world, into the other dimension ? '* 

The evidence that it does so pass into the 
spirit world is accumulating so rapidly, is at- 
tracting the interest of so large a proportion of 
thoughtful people, is arresting the attention of 
so many, that it is only a question of time — and 
not a long time — when this new revelation of the 
divine law shall take its place as one of the 
most momentous movements of all the ages. 
The moral effect will be most important. 

It is readily seen how the introduction of 
swift communication into the methods of the 
working world has raised the standard of mo- 
rality. Crime cannot hide itself successfully 



Vision and Achievement 187 

when the knowledge of the deed and the descrip- 
tion of the evil-doer is flashed swiftly all over the 
world. The electric light is also conceded to be 
a moral agent, and the illumination of great 
cities is regarded as more effective than would 
be the enlargement of the police force. 

The new accelerated telegraphy raises this aid 
in degree. The new method increases the 
transmission of words to some 200,000 an hour, 
and now another advance condenses the work of 
an hour into a single minute. A despatch was 
recently transmitted from Budapest to Berlin in 
six seconds. Marconi's wireless telegraphy gives 
greater results than those obtained by any other 
method, and is destined to serve such purpose 
in navigation as to decrease disaster at sea and 
to change the whole face of civilization, indeed, 
by the results that a century ago would have 
been regarded as a miracle. 

Now, if morality is to be increased and crime 
lessened by the results of the cable, the tele- 
graph, and wireless transmission, the next logical 
step and the next higher and more significant 
series of results will be wrought by the telepathic 
intercommunication of mind to mind, by means 



188 The Spiritual Significance, 

of the dynamic force of thought. If it were real- 
ized that the entire physical world was open to 
the view of the entire ethereal world ; that is to 
say, if it were believed that they whom we call 
the dead saw clearly — far more clearly than 
when here — the acts of persons in this world ; 
and not only the acts, but the motive, the thought, 
the intention ; if it were recognized that commu- 
nication existed between the two conditions of 
life, — this life and the one " more abundant," — 
what a potent influence is at once established to 
decrease the evil and increase the good ? Still 
more, if the barriers grow so faint that those in 
the Seen realize and recognize the nobler sig- 
nificance and the loftier standards of that truer 
life, how all the ambitions and aspirations of 
this part of life are purified and ennobled and 
exalted ! 

Psycho-physical culture admits to that infinite 
reservoir of knowledge which Emerson desig- 
nates as the Over-Soul, and which has been 
latterly termed the Cosmic Mind. Balzac has 
said : — 

" The world of ideas divides itself into three 
spheres, — that of instinct (simple consciousness) ; 



Vision and Achievement. 189 

that of abstraction (self-consciousness) ; and that of 
specialism (Cosmic Consciousness), ... As an in- 
stinctive, man is below the level ; as an abstractive, 
he attains to it ; as a specialist, he rises above it. 
Specialism opens to man his course ; the infinite 
dawns upon him ; he catches glimpses of his destiny." 

Balzac proceeds as follows : — 

" There exist three worlds, — the natural world, 
the spiritual world, the divine world. Humanity 
moves hither and thither in the natural world, which, 
is fixed neither in its essence nor in its properties. 
The spiritual world is fixed in its essence and variable 
in its p7'operties» The divine woidd is fixed in its prop- 
erties and in its essence. ^^ 

Unquestionably, there is about us an atmos- 
phere, a realm, which interpenetrates our own, 
and whose inhabitants are in the closest magnetic 
interchange of thought with the inhabitants of 
the physical world ; these inhabitants are our 
friends and acquaintances who have passed the 
change called death, and who are therefore liv- 
ing under new conditions, but conditions of 
which we also partake. For man, by virtue of 
his spiritual nature, is an inhabitant of the 



190 The Spiritual Significance. 

spiritual as well as the physical world. In fact, 
we are essentially and permanently spiritual 
beings, and only incidentally and temporarily 
physical beings. The next step in progress — 
of which we are on the threshold — is that clair- 
voyance and clairaudience will be recognized 
as normal faculties. The development of spirit- 
ual sight and spiritual hearing is just as pos- 
sible to the spiritual man while still sojourning 
in his physical body, as is the development 
of the finer perceptions and higher faculties 
in any direction ; and the sight and hearing 
in relation to the unseen realm will become 
just as much a normal part of our percep- 
tions as are sight and hearing on the physical 
plane. The psycho-physical culture opens to 
man another discrete degree of life. A well- 
known scientist has recently affirmed his belief 
that the acuteness of the senses will be increased 
from five to ten times during the next century 
alone. " The man of the remote future will have 
senses which wq do not possess. He will be 
able to hear higher pitches of sound and to 
recognize a greater number of tone qualities. 
He will be able to discriminate between colors 



Vision and Achievement, 191 

below the red and above the violet. Five thou- 
sand years from now the human race will detect 
ten different steps in each fundamental color. " 

The next step onward in life is that men 
will live from the psychical rather than from 
the physical basis. The subtle body has been 
almost wholly ignored; the physical body has 
been the one on which care and thought were 
bestowed. It has been made the recipient of 
drugs; it has been overloaded with injurious 
food ; it has been denied the invigorating stim- 
ulus of pure air, exercise, and cold water to a 
degree that attests a signal triumph of spirit 
over flesh in that it has any working power left 
at all. At the least inactivity and indisposition, 
doctors and drugs are summoned. Man has 
failed to realize that his physical body is not 
himself; that it is only informed with vitality 
and activity by the determination of the psychic 
body ; that he might almost as well perpetually 
patch and repair one suit of clothing, endeavor- 
ing to make it last, as to treat his physical body 
to mere physical repair and restoration. The 
physical body can be perpetually renewed and 
restored, but the means thereby are inner and 



192 The Spiritual Significance. 

not outer ones. When Saint Paul said : ^' Be ye 
transformed by the renewing of your spirit," he 
gave the most practical directions for health, — 
physically as well as spiritually. 

The secret of health in the high sense of equi- 
poise, of equilibrium, of unfailing energy, is to 
live in the psychic (or subtle) rather than in the 
physical body. This consciousness can be trans- 
ferred from the one to the other. In a general 
way man has gone about with a conviction that 
his visible body was himself. He believed that 
he " had " a soul, — some mysterious possession 
which was largely a mere latent treasure for 
this life, and whose use was reserved for some 
vague and mysterious future after death. Mean- 
time, he identified himself with his body ; and 
when it was fatigued or out of repair in any 
way, he believed that various sorts of internal 
and external applications would restore it. 
There is some truth in this belief, but the aid 
is largely that which results by the exciting of 
hope and belief in cure, this hope and belief be- 
ing attributes of th6 psychical body, and being 
curative and invigorating in their very nature. 
But the restoration is largely not because of 



Vision and Achievement. 193 

drugs and appliances, but in spite of them. 
There is a more excellent way. 

May we suppose that one confronts a task of 
magnitude to be completed within so short a 
space of time as to be fairly appalling, when 
judged from the ordinary standpoint. There is, 
for instance, a work ordinarily requiring a month 
which needs to be completed within a week. 
How is he to endure so severe a tax ? Is he to 
" overwork," as we say, and at the end, even 
if he pulls through, find himself in a state of 
exhaustion ? Not at all. 

Here comes in the truer philosophy. As 
Emerson has so well said : " Our painful labors 
are unnecessary ; there is a better way." 

Let him, then, sit down in silence and peace 
and concentrate his thought on higher themes. 
Let him realize that he is a part of the Infinite 
Energy, and the Infinite Energy is creative. 
God, the Supreme Source, speaks achievements 
into being. " Let there be light," He said, " and 
there was light.'^ The more truly man advances 
in the divine path which it is his privilege, by 
virtue of his divine nature, to tread, the more 
he acquires tliis power which is fairly creative. 

13 



194 The Spiritual Significance, 

He pauses and contemplates his task. He 
lifts up his heart to God. He realizes the inti- 
mate relation that he holds to the infinite energy 
of the universe, that it is electric in quality, and 
will flow through him, so to speak, and will do 
the work of itself, he needing only to be the 
directing energy. If he is an artist, and wishes 
to paint a landscape, he stamps upon this energy 
the direction he wishes it to take. This subtle 
body will work, will execute, will achieve to the 
most extraordinary extent if it be trained to 
action. The intellectual choice and direction de- 
termines the form, manner, and treatment of its 
work, but it will work with the absolute freedom 
from fatigue that characterizes mechanism, if 
one learns thus to transfer the burden from the 
physical to the subtle body, as spirit does not 
know fatigue. It is electrical in potency, and is 
self-renewing. It is only the physical that is 
tired, or ill, or out of tune. Transfer the activity 
to the psychical, and it is possible to accomplish 
work to a degree that is incredible viewed from 
the materialistic standpoint. 

The relation of those in the realm of the Seen 
to those in the realm of the Unseen is constantly 



Vision and Achievement. 195 

becoming a more momentous matter in the pres- 
ent daily life. The mere fact of communication 
between the two worlds, interesting as it is, 
all-comforting as it is, is still only one in a chain 
of facts that hold determining influence on the 
aifairs and the progress of humanity. For if 
there is a twofold life pertaining to this planet 
in which its inhabitants live ; if all the conscious 
life is largely influenced and determined by a 
deeper and more significant life of which we 
are not yet conscious, it is a most important 
truth. 

Rev. Dr. S. 0. McConnell, rector of Holy 
Trinity in Brooklyn, questioned in a recent dis- 
course as to what is our connection with those 
who have passed on to the life more abundant^ 
and continued : — 

" Is there any interplay of affection, any exchange 
of kindly offices 1 Are they in any way concerned 
about us, or we about them'? To answer these 
questions intelligently we must ask, *What is the 
belief of our church concerning the condition of the 
departed ] ' Not this individual, or that, but the 
categorical statement of authority with regard to 
the multitude of dead. 



196 The Spiritual Significance. 

" The belief of our church, — and I say it carefully 
but plainly, — the formal, official declaration of the 
Prayer Book, is not the Protestant belief. That be- 
lief is summed up in the statement that Hhe souls of 
believers are at death made perfect unto holiness and 
immediately pass into glory.' A very little reflection 
will show that this is inconceivable, unthinkable. 
Humanity is thus put into two categories. A line 
is drawn through humanity, on one side being the 
righteous and on the other side being the wicked. 

" No such distinction is possible. There are no 
righteous and no wicked. The good and the evil 
are so mixed up in all of us that its classification 
cannot be made. 

" Life is a probation, and always will be. The 
next life, or any life, is a life of probation. It 
continues and is complete if it fulfils the conditions. 
Is there any place for moral recovery? Is there a 
place Avhere faults may be corrected and a new life 
begun *? My answer is this : Life is growing, in this 
or any other state. Growing is changing for the 
better. I cannot conceive of an existence where 
growth is not possible. We die as men, and when 
we wake to consciousness we awake as men. The 
possibility of recovery must exist as long as the 
human soul exists and wherever it exists." 



Vision and Achievement 197 

Certainly, the event of death does not relegate 
man to a final and fixed state of happiness 
or of misery; the life just after death is the 
natural result in evolutionary progress of the 
quality of the life lived here; and the with- 
drawal of the substantial body (the psychic) 
from the temporal body (the physical) does not 
produce any immediate and violent change in the 
individuality. The basis of reasoning in the 
past has been wrong. The unit of departure is 
the psychical body and the spiritual life. It 
has been vaguely held that at death, in some 
mysterious and incomprehensible way, man ac- 
quired a spiritual body, but the truth now ap- 
parent is that this spiritual (or the psychic and 
substantial) body is the real one always and the 
permanent one, to whose form and organs the tem- 
porary, physical body corresponds. This psychic 
body has sight and hearing ; the physical eye 
and ear is the outer sign. The change we call 
death is simply the withdrawal of this psychic 
body from the physical body. Spirit alone is 
substance and permanence, so that Swedenborg 
well calls this subtle body the ^^substantial" 
one, and he adds : — 



198 The Spiritual Significance. 

" That when a man passes from the natural into the 
spiritual world, he takes with him all things belongs 
ing to him as a man, except his terrestrial body, has 
been proved to me by manifold experiences. For 
when he enters the spiritual world, or the life after 
death, he is in a body, as he was in the natural 
world, — to all appearance in the same body. But 
his body is spiritual. ... A human spirit enjoys 
every external and internal sense which he possessed 
in the world. He also longs, wishes, thinks, loves, 
and wills, as before. He who is delighted with 
studies, reads and writes as before. In a word, when 
man passes from one world to the other, it is just as 
if he passed from one place to another. . . o 

" However, the difference between his life in the 
spiritual and the natural world is great, as well with 
respect to the external senses as with the internal 
senses and the affections of both. The senses of 
those in heaven are far more exquisite than they were 
in the world ; they see and hear more perfectly, and 
think more wisely. For they see by the light of 
heaven and hear by a spiritual atmosphere." 

Now, when this psychic body withdraws 
from its outer covering, the individual is the 
same in his intellectual and spiritual degree. 
He sees and hears on the spiritual plane, and 



Vision and Achievement, 199 

just in proportion to one's power for developing 
the psychic sight and the psychic hearing while 
in the physical body, is he enabled to communi- 
cate by virtue of his life on the same plane. 
Spiritual communion does not mean to material- 
ize those in the Unseen, but to spiritualize those 
in the Seen. It means that man may assert his 
own innate spiritual supremacy. This thought 
is the next step onward in all the Christian 
world. The true seeker for the spiritual up- 
lifting of life that may enable him to live in 
conscious sympathy and response with the life 
of the next plane just beyond, will find his 
aid less in phenomena than in ethical thought 
and in aspiration. He would find his aid in 
the church rather than in the stance. But the 
fact, the already demonstrated truth, that the 
intercourse between the two realms of the Seen 
and the Unseen exists, is of tremendous import 
in modern religious life. It infuses a new 
vitality into Christianity. It renders the rela- 
tion between man and God more clear and com- 
prehensible. It offers the energy of a new 
encouragement, and informs faith with knowl- 
edge. In short, it illuminates the entire nature 



200 The Spiritual Significance, 

and destiny of man, revealing to him with scien- 
tific proofs something of his true place in the 
cosmos, and imparts to him new hope, new 
endeavor, and increases his sympathy and his 
love for his fellow-man. 

Fifty years ago Dr. Horace Bushnell sat in a 
convention listening to a theological discussion, 
when he arose and said : — 

" Brethren, it is not for me to say that these ques- 
tions are trivial, but their vital importance is passing 
away. Graver and deeper matters loom up before us 
in the near future, not of election and reprobation, 
not of trinity or atonement, but we shall soon be 
asked, * Is there a God or any Divine government ] 
Is there any future life ? * And these questions we 
must be ready to meet, not by dogmatic assertions, 
hut by argument and illustration that will satisfy 
reason and conscience, and awaken spiritual life." 

Religion is no mere fixed statement, unalter- 
able in its promises, but it is rather the view of 
God and of the Divine Universe that enlarges 
as man's intelligence and spirituality increase ; 
that comprehends with increasing grasp and 
clearness the laws that govern life, and reveals 



Vision and Achievement. 201 

how moral integrity is the one and the only 
gateway to progress. Force and matter are 
alive and are in a constant state of activity. 
They may be harnessed for the use of man. 
Humanity is now entering on this new and more 
glorious era, where the advance into wisdom 
is proportionately an advance into happiness ; 
where a larger knowledge of the divine laws 
shall invest all conscious life with nobler activi- 
ties, with fairer joys, and with the holy earnest- 
ness of great achievements before which Vision 
ever goes, like the cloud which was the pillar of 
light in the darkness, unerringly pointing the 
onward way. 



BETWEEN THE SEEN AND 

THE UNSEEN. 



The following of Christ is a journey of enlarging and unceasing 
discovery. — Rev. George D. Hereon, D.D. 

The free ivinds told him what they Jcnew^ 

Discoursed of fortune as they blew ; 

Omens and signs that filled the air 

To him authentic witness hare ; 

The birds brought auguries on their wings. 

Well might then the poet scorn 
To learn of scribe or courier 
Things writ in vaster character. 

Emerson. 



BETWEEN THE SEEN AND THE 

UNSEEN. 

The properties of the ether, and their relation to such 
physical phenomena as have been the subjects of research, 
are so little knawn that no one has yet ventured to 
embody them in an all-embracing philosophy so as so 
deduce apparent phenomena from them. 

Professor Dolbeare. 

|IR HUMPHRY DAVY postulated the 
existence of an ethereal matter which 
could never be evident to the senses, 
but which bears the same relation to heat, light, 
and electricity that these bear to gases. When 
the wave theory of light was discovered, it was 
at once seen that its transmission must depend 
upon a medium, as no wave motion could exist 
in a vacuum. Science thus expressed her pre- 
vision of the logical necessity of the ether before 
its existence was discovered. Not only light, 
but all electric and magnetic phenomena de- 




206 The Spiritual Significance. 

maiided this medium ; and its universal value, as 
I10V7 determined, is such as to lead Professor Dol- 
beare to assert that " all physical properties are 
modes of motion of the ether in the ether," and 
its discovery has simply revolutionized all pre- 
vious fundamental conceptions of physics. '' The 
mystery of phenomena is not lessened, but made 
greater," says Professor Dolbeare, in his notable 
treatise on " Matter, Ether, and Motion," which 
is an illumination on tlie nature of the universe, 
— *^ the mystery of phenomena is not lessened, 
but made greater by the discovery that every- 
thing vrhich affects our senses is finally resolvable 
into a substance having physical properties so 
utterly unlike the properties of w^hat we call 
matter that it is a misuse of terms to call it 
matter, and no one hitherto has been able to fore- 
cast its properties." Professor Dolbeare empha- 
sizes this view, indeed, to the degree of declar- 
ing that '^ Every physical phenomenon runs at 
last into an inexplicable, into an ether question." 
As the reader perceives, this great scientist offers 
" the inexplicable " and " the ether " as synony- 
mous terms. So marvellous, indeed, does he 
regard this " inexplicable " environment, the 



Between the Seen and the Unseen, 207 

ether, which holds in sohition the explanation of 
every unexplainable problem, that he says : — 

" The ether is a storehouse of unlimited energy of 
many kinds ; so if every particle of matter were in- 
sta^ntly annihilated, there would still be a universe 
filled with energy, though it might not be service- 
able because lacking the conditions for transforma- 
tion into useful forms. This may be said to be one 
of the functions of matter, — the transformation of 
the energy it gets from the ether." 

This remarkable statement not only arrests 
the attention, but carries the student of physics 
to its corresponding and interpenetrative psychic 
realm. Modern science has discovered that 
vital force is not an entity; that it has no ex- 
istence. Dr. John Fiske says, " The hypothesis 
of a vital principle is now as completely dis- 
carded as the hypothesis of phlogiston in chem- 
istry. No biologist with a reputation to lose 
would for a moment think of defending it." 
All the phenomena of organic life are now inter- 
preted by means of physical and chemical laws. 
The recognition that vital force is not an entity, 
that it is a product, a result of certain chemical 



J 



208 The Spiritual Significance. 

conditions, transforms physiological science and 
opens a new field for speculation and experi- 
mental study regarding the psychic nature of 
man. Yet, as Professor Dolbeare points out, the 
old conception regarding vitality had become so 
thoroughly incorporated into life and literature 
that ^^a whole generation of men had to be 
buried before any attention was paid to what had 
been proven. Joule's work, showing the trans- 
formation of force into heat and light, made no 
impression," continues Professor Dolbeare, "and 
for seven years he was refused a place in the 
Royal Society." Yet the scenery of daily life now 
presents to us perpetual illustrations of the cor- 
relation of forces whose law is the basis of much 
of our transit, of our mechanical achievements, 
and of the heating and lighting of cities. All 
the latter-day achievements that have so inter- 
penetrated social and industrial life as to be- 
come inseparable from its manifestations give 
"definite conceptions and relations where be- 
fore only ghosts and genii were supposed to 
do duty." 

This assertion is as applicable to psychics as 
to physics. Beginning with the hitherto myste- 



Between the Seen and the Unseen. 209 

rious conception of vital force as some strange 
and incalculable entity that defied any knowl- 
edge as to whence it came or whither it went, 
and which is now known to be a matter of cer- 
tain combinations of physical and chemical con- 
ditions ; and proceeding to mental and spiritual 
phenomena, — the student of life in its whole- 
ness is coming to see that "ghosts and genii" 
are indeed slain, and that, in place of ignorant 
awe, if not terror, of the unknown, man is ad- 
vancing to an intelligent grasp and a reverent 
recognition of the series of natural laws that 
govern the universe, whose marvellous scope and 
adaptability exceed in their power and beauty 
anything that imagination could conceive. There 
is no conceivable limit to the advance of man's 
discovery regarding the nature and the laws 
of the universe. Any day is liable to see some 
new invention or recognition that offers solu- 
tions to old problems. In touching these mat- 
ters, a writer labors under the same embarrass- 
ment that beset an English compiler of the 
population of the new western cities in the 
United States, which he said were liable to 
double their population while his book was in 

14 



210 The Spiritual Significance 

press. Even the problem of transit through the 
air " is not half so unlikely as it seemed a few 
years ago," says Professor Dolbeare, "since it 
evidently requires for accomplishment only a di- 
rected reaction against the ether, and we already 
know how to produce the reaction of electrical 
means, and every point in space has the energy 
for transformation. When this reaction can be 
neutralized at one pole and not at the other," 
he continues, " the navigation of space will at 
once become mechanically possible." 

As such revolutionary possibilities may lie in 
any day, the speculative data of any student 
may be crystallized into actuality before its 
publication. If all the problems of the universe 
resolve themselves, at the last analysis, into ether 
problems, their solution must be acknowledged 
to be only a question of time. The supreme 
result of all scientific progress is the revelation 
of the simplicity, rather than the complexity, 
of all laws ; the properties of the ether con- 
stitute the field for research. In these there 
seems to lie the key to the mysteries of be- 
ing, and to all the vast achievements of the 
future. 



Behveen the Seen and the Unseen, 211 

This brings us face to face with a scientific 
fact that reveals a corresponding truth regard- 
ing the life in the ethereal world. One of the 
extraordinary properties of the ether is that 
the stress we call gravitation must have a 
velocity in it more than a million times greater 
than light ; that is, more than one hundred 
and eighty-six thousand million miles a second. 
** The proof of this/' says Professor Dolbeare, 
'• is that the movements of the planets would be 
different from what they are observed to be if 
gravitative action was less than that figure. 
And the movements of double and triple stars 
show that gravitation controls them as it does 
the moon and planets. Such a velocity is not 
comparable with any velocity exhibited by any 
kind of matter with which we are acquainted." 
Now, if gravitation in the ether has a velocity 
more than a million times greater than that of 
light, does not this suggest the scientific ex- 
planation of the swift movement of the in- 
habitants of the ethereal world? Professor 
Dolbeare offers these proofs supporting the 
theory of this velocity in the ether. " Shoot- 
ing stars," he says, *^ come into our atmosphere 



212 The Spiritual Significance. 

with a velocity of about twenty-five miles a 
second. Some comets have moved about the 
sun with a velocity of nearly four hundred miles 
a second, yet have not had their speed reduced 
by friction as they would have had if the me- 
dium they moved in was like a gas, even if it 
were very rare. It is concluded, therefore, that 
the ether is frictionless, and, as light comes to 
us from such distant bodies, that the ether 
must fill all the space within the visible 
universe, also that it cannot be made up of 
particles like ordinary matter. Phenomena 
would be different from what they are observed 
to be if it were otherwise constituted. In most 
particulars the properties of the ether are so 
diff*erent from the properties of matter that it 
will not do to call it matter ; it is something 
else." 

All study of the nature of man is inextricably 
united with study of the universe. The powers 
and possibilities of the soul are conditioned by 
its successive environments, although the degree 
of its achievement of spiritual energy predeter- 
mines the outer manifestation which we call 
environment. Science, that is continually pene- 



Between the Seen and the Unseen. 213 

trating the laws of the universe and revealing 
its mysteries, offers an increasing illumination 
on the nature and destiny of human life. There 
is no limit to the quest of knowledge; the far 
horizon line of yesterday is in the middle distance 
of to-day. The telescope reached its limits of 
discovery, and, behold, the spectroscope was 
invented as an attachment which so extended 
the power of the telescope as to enable the 
observer to determine whether a heavenly body 
was moving toward, or away from, our solar 
system, and to even approximate to its rate of 
motion. The spectroscope has even revealed, 
under the scientific skill of Professor Keeler of 
Lick Observatory, that the rings of Saturn are 
rotating at different rates. "Attempt has been 
made with the spectroscope," says Professor 
Dolbeare, "to discover whether or not the 
earth, in its astronomic movements of rotation 
on its axis and revolution about the sun, makes 
any disturbance in the ether, — whether it drags 
the ether with it, as a moving railroad train drags 
the air, or not ; but all the evidence so far seems 
to show that the ether is not disturbed in tlie 
slightest degree. It appears as if the earth 



214 The Spiritual Significance, 

moved through it as a coarse mesh sieve will 
go through water, not displacing it in any 
appreciable degree." 

This fact suggests, by analogy, the relations 
between the physical and the ethereal worlds. 
If the earth moves through the ether as a coarse 
mesh sieve will go through water, not displacing 
it in any appreciable degree, so is it not conceiv- 
able that all the phenomena of physical life 
are moving among the phenomena of ethereal 
life, — a universe unperceived by us except as 
some development of the spiritual powers per- 
ceives it by the finer sight and hearing of the 
psychic body ? 

Prof. Oliver Lodge, writing of "The Inter- 
stellar Ether," said : — 

"By investigations now going on, no merely ma- 
terial prospect will be opened before us, but some 
glimpse into a region which science has never yet 
entered, but which has been sought from afar, and 
perhaps blindly appreciated by painter or poet, by 
philosopher or saint." 

Since the discovery of the Rontgen ray there 
has been no such marvellous revelation of hith- 



Between the Seen and the Unseen. 215 

erto unsuspected resources of nature as that 
offered by Tesla, in the existence in the atmos- 
phere of a current which, under sufficient electri- 
cal pressure, will transmit power to any extent 
and to any distance. The discovery by Rontgen 
of the X-rays, of the possibility of wireless teleg- 
raphy by Marconi, and of this atmospheric cur- 
rent by Tesla, constitute a group of new insights 
into nature which are of the utmost importance, 
— not only in revealing potent resources hitherto 
undiscerned, but as indicative of the progress of 
humanity in conquering new territory in the Un- 
seen. What is the nature of the spiritual world ? 
we are always questioning ; and the answer 
seems to be that it is a world corresponding to 
this, only of higher potencies. All the present 
life of humanity is twofold, and is lived partly 
in both worlds, — the Seen and the Unseen. 
Telepathy, that is now scientifically recognized as 
a mode of communication as real as is telegraphy, 
is a method of the Unseen universe. Wireless 
telegraphy belongs to that realm. Just as 
rapidly as the power of the spiritual man 
develops and demands methods of life pertain- 
ing to the spiritual world, these methods are 



216 The Spiritual Significance, 

evolved. It is a part of the divine inheritance 
of humanity. " Natural things and spiritual," 
— these are interrelated in a manner that 
nothing can separate. But when the recognition 
of this becomes a conscious and intelligent one, 
then all the basis of action is enlarged and en- 
nobled, and life has a new centre. The physical 
world as surveyed from the spiritual plane has 
been thus described : — 

" To begin with, you appear to us like a double 
mau. We see the physical body only ; instead 
of being solid and material, it is transparent and 
shadowy to our eyes, and we see you seated on 
a transparent and shadowy chair surrounded by 
shadowy papers and equally shadowy furniture. In 
fact, you present the appearance of a ghost to us. 
There is a spiritual duplicate of everything, and 
while this is invisible and intangible to the senses, 
it is tangible and visible to the spirit touch and 
sight. . . . The two worlds are interblended, natural 
and spiritual. . . . The material body is what you 
call the physical body ; the spiritual body is what we 
call the spiritual counterpart of the former, visible 
only to us, and appearing to our senses to be material 
and solid, while the physical body seems ghostly and 



Betiveen the Seen and the Unseen, 217 

transparent. What we call the soul is not the spirit 
body nor material body, but is the life essence that 
dwells in the spiritual body, and of which the latter, 
as well as the material body, are only outer envelopes. 
When we speak of ' the spirit ' as an inhabitant of the 
spirit world, of course we mean the soul and its spirit 
body. You are, however, just as much ' spirits ' as 
we are, only that you possess, in addition to the soul 
and spirit body, a material body. . . . During the 
time that the material body is awake, the man is not 
conscious of what goes on in the spirit world ; but 
when it is asleep the spirit resumes its conscious- 
ness. ... It is commonly the cause that the friends 
in the Unseen who are in attendance on the body by 
day, permit the spirit to enjoy their companionship 
consciously at night. . . . The spirit sees all that is 
going on and will waken the body, if necessary." 

To come into a clear comprehension of these 
laws of life, of the manner in which man is an 
inhabitant of two worlds and has to do with the 
realm of causes as well as with the realm of re- 
sults, is to enter on a more intelligent conception 
of moral responsibility and spiritual potentiali- 
ties. The initial step to religious life is to under- 
stand the true nature of being. Prayer is the 



218 The Spiritual Significance, 

most powerful of motors, because it links man 
with the world of the Unseen ; because it is a 
channel through which divine forces may pour 
themselves into his purpose and inform and de- 
termine his conduct. Prayer is the safeguard of 
life, simply because it performs this office of re- 
lating man to the Divine. This truth illumines 
the entire ceremonial life of religion ; it teaches 
man how " to live worthily," how to live so that 
his energy shall radiate and shall make glad all 
who come near him, and shall enable him con- 
stantly to extend and ennoble his contributions 
to contemporary progress. 

In Mr. Walter WyckofF's remarkable series of 
studies from the life entitled " The Workers," 
he recounts a conversation with two of his 
fellow-laborers at the period of his experiences 
when he had the care of horses in a livery stable, 
when the talk turned on astronomy, and Mr. 
WyckofF narrates : — 

"Ed commented disparagingly on any claim of 
astronomers to weigh the heavenly bodies and to 
measure their distances from one another and from 
the earth, and John agreed with him, and insisted 
that not until a line could be carried from one to 



Behveen the Seen and the Unseen, 219 

another, and each star weighed accurately in a scale, 
would he put any confidence in these pretended 
results." 

This method of reasoning reminds one of 
assertions not unlike it often made regarding 
facts pertaining to the spiritual life. From the 
time that Thomas exclaimed that except he could 
see the print of the nails he would not believe in 
the risen Christ, up to the present hour, the same 
doubting attitude has prevailed among those 
who would require physical evidence of spirit- 
ual truth. Now, as Saint Paul says, there is a 
natural body and there is a spiritual body, and 
while the physical senses discern the evidences 
of the one, the psychical senses discern the evi- 
dences of the other. Theologies have invested 
death and the life beyond with the greatest dark- 
ness of mystery, whereas the direct teachings of 
Jesus and the disciples, if taken in the simple 
and literal way in which they are given, illumi- 
nate and make plain the way. The world at 
large is even yet under a nebulous impression 
that death is a sleep, a period of utter uncon- 
sciousness, of infinite duration ; and that some- 
time, somewhere, and somehow, a " last trump " 



220 The Spiritual Significance. 

shall sound, and some incomprehensible miracle 
occur to the incomprehensible beings into which 
we shall all have become transformed. Or, in 
a somewhat higher light, though little less re- 
mote from demonstrated truth, there is a vague 
belief that those who die enter on a conscious 
life, somehow and somewhere ; that '^ the soul " 
lives in some way undreamed of and totally 
incomprehensible to us here ; but that this life 
is on a plane of consciousness so entirely re- 
moved from our own that the separation is ut- 
terly complete, and that until we, too, pass 
through the change called death, the removal 
is absolute, and the mystery of the life beyond 
insoluble. 

Tennyson indicates the nature of this life in 
the stanza : — 

"And doubtless, unto thee is given 
A life that bears immortal fruit 
In such great offices as suit 
The full-grown energies of heaven." 

" There is a natural body and there is a spiritual 
body." Here is the basis of the true explanation. 
This spiritual body is the real, the permanent 
being. We are all, here and now, spiritual 



Between the Seen and the Unseen. 221 

beings in the spiritual body, and in touch with 
spiritual forces. But — this spiritual body is 
temporarily clothed upon with a physical cover- 
ing, in order that the individual may temporarily 
enter into relations with the physical world. 
We need to transpose our standard. The real 
world, the real life, is the spiritual ; the temporal 
world, the temporal life, is the physical. We 
are here to learn to live ; but the living itself 
comes on the higher plane. This higher plane 
is one with which we are in touch just in 
proportion to our own development of spiritual 
energy. The law of evolution is as constant on 
all planes as are the laws of gravitation and 
attraction that hold the stars in their courses. 
The change of form produces no violent or mys- 
terious alteration. The man who died last night 
is the same in all essentials to-day that he was 
yesterday, except that he has withdrawn from 
the visible form. 

This philosophy, which is substantiated at 
every step by the teachings and assertions of 
Jesus and the apostles, and by all the observa- 
tions of the phenomena of life, uplifts the drama 
of existence to the plane of significance and of 



222 The Spiritual Significance. 

divine illumination. One's life is, primarily, be- 
tween one's self and the Lord. 

" By thine own soul's law learn to live. " 

If recognition and sympathy come to one, so 
much the happier. If they do not come, what 
then ? It is only a mere question of time to him 
who keeps his face turned towards the morning. 

" Sing thou thy song and do thy deed ; 
Hope thou thy hope and pray thy prayer." 

The unseen friends companion us, give us 
sympathy, recognition, aid ; all that is best in 
aspiration, all that is purest in purpose, enters 
on its expression in the higher and Unseen realm. 

The various degrees of this aid from those in 
the Unseen correspond to the various needs of 
those who receive it, and is conditioned, also, by 
the degree of advancement of the helpers in the 
Unseen. More and more clearly is it coming to 
be recognized that the real unit of measurement, 
so to speak, the true point of departure, the 
absolute standard from which to judge, is the 
spiritual and not the physical realm. Modern 
thought has evolved the theory that the spiritual 
world is in correspondence with the physical; 



Between the Seen and the Unseen* 223 

that continents, oceans, hills, forests, flowers, all 
natural scenery that exists here, has its prototype 
there. But the still nearer approach to the 
truth is that it is the physical world which is 
in correspondence with the spiritual ; that the 
realm of the Unseen is the real, the positive, 
the permanent world, and that the realm of the 
Seen is its manifestation. That is to say, the 
world beyond does not exist because this world 
does, but this one is the reflection in form of 
that. We see a tree, and that which we see is 
the visible manifestation of the ethereal tree, as 
seen by those in the ethereal world. All this at- 
mospheric realm in which we live is twofold : we 
see one side of it ; those who have passed out of 
the body see the other side. Heaven is not a lo- 
cation ; it is a condition ; but no change as meas- 
ured by geographical space could be more en- 
tirely a new world than to go from the condi- 
tions of the Seen to those of the Unseen. Thus 
the same room may be at once in the physical and 
in the spiritual world. It may be, and as a matter 
of fact it more or less is, inhabited by two classes 
of beings, — by those in the physical and those 
in the spiritual body. The change is only as 



224 The Spiritual Significance. 

the same object, under different conditions, pre- 
sents different aspects. Conjoined with the rose 
is the ethereal rose, and the flower we see is but 
a faint reflection of the rich color and fragrance 
of the one we do not see. 

Still there is no hard and fast line between 
these two worlds. They merge and blend accord- 
ing to the faculties and capacities of individual 
development. It is readily seen how what we 
call " the world " is almost a matter of individual 
recognition. It is one thing to the child, another 
to the man or woman. It is one thing to the 
man of culture, another to the ignorant. It is 
one thing to the man whose moral and spiritual 
faculties are developed ; another to him who has 
made little progress in the unfolding of the finer 
and higher life. Then, besides this variation of 
individual development there is the race develop- 
ment, in which each sliares to a greater or less 
degree. The steam engine, the telegraph, the 
telephone, the heliograph, the automobile, are 
the inventions of a few ; but the race shares in 
the advantages they bring. They are less inven- 
tions, indeed, than discoveries in the realm of 
unseen potencies; and what we call "the 



Between the Seen and the Unseen, 225 

other life," or " the life to come," is simply ad- 
vancing into the recognition of higher forces and 
finer conditions. The two worlds are merely a 
succession of states or conditions. The spiritual 
man, even while imprisoned and limited by his 
physical body, may make great advance in realms 
beyond the usual limits of the physical. 

This possibility is now being marvellously ful- 
filled by those scientific seers who recognize forces 
and laws not heretofore known to man. They 
are fairly " seeing the invisible." They are discov- 
ering and utilizing laws which have not before 
been brought into use in this part of life. The 
limits of the world of the Seen are being pushed 
forward into the world of the Unseen, so that 
man on earth to-day is enjoying opportunities, 
privileges, and conveniences that formerly he only 
came into a knowledge of by leaving his physical 
body. 

The line between the two realms is thus seen 
to be not a fixed arbitrary boundary, but one 
that advances as we advance. We are con- 
stantly, and of late very rapidly, conquering 
new territory in this world of the finer forces. 
What is telepathy but the language of the future 

15 



226 The Spiritual Significance. 

life? What is the flashing of messages by 
means of wireless telegraph, or the sending of 
pictures by electric means, but a hint of the 
miechanisra of life that prevails in the life that 
opens after laying ofi* the physical body? 

This world of the Unseen is pressing upon 
us from every side. We are companioned by 
invisible friends. They speak to us, and we are 
learning how to distinguish their words. We 
receive a vast and an increasing amount of im- 
pressions, and the degree to which we receive 
these impressions is determined entirely by our 
own degree of development. The infant is un- 
conscious of whatever intelligence or genius may 
be about him. The child becomes more sus- 
ceptible to impression, and recognizes in increas- 
ing degree, as he develops, the wisdom, the 
love, that enfolds his life. This analogy holds 
true in man's perception of the Unseen world 
by which he is surrounded, and from which 
he receives aid and suggestion and perpetual 
guidance. 

" In order that men may be induced to labor 
diligently to efi*ect their own purification, to re- 
press their evil tendencies, and to vanquish their 



Between the Seen and the Unseen. 227 

worldly passions, they must see the advantages 
which such a line of action will secure to them 
in the future life," wrote M. Leon Hippolite- 
Rivail. "In order that they may be able to 
identify themselves with that future life, to con- 
centrate their aspirations upon it, and to pre- 
fer it to the life of the earth, they must not only 
believe in its existence, but must also under- 
stand it. They must be able to contemplate it 
under an aspect which shall be in harmony with 
their reason and their common sense, with their 
innate desire of happiness, and with their high- 
est idea of the greatness, goodness, and justice 
of God." 

Psychic science discovers the Unseen realm, 
and makes progress in a knowledge of its laws 
as the science of astronomy progresses and en- 
larges its grasp of truth. The faith inculcated 
by Jesus establishes the certainty of the Unseen 
world to all who believe, but psychic science 
explores and demonstrates it, and proceeds in- 
creasingly to find out and formulate the laws that 
govern it. The common remark among people 
who have never given one minute's study or 
research in this direction, that, "If communi- 



228 The Spiritual Significance. 

cation between the Seen and the Unseen is 
true, then why does not So-and-so come to rae?" 
is about as wise as to say, " If the X-ray is a 
fact, why can't I see through my hand as I hold 
it up to the light?" or, "If Saturn has four 
moons and two rings, why do not I see them ? " 
A person who has never given an intelligent 
thought to the literature of psychic research, 
who has never read or studied into spiritual 
laws, will assert his wonder that in case there 
is truth in the spiritual philosophy he should 
not himself have known and experienced it! 
The study of the higher mathematics, including 
astronomy and the calculations of tides and 
eclipses; the study of electricity with all its 
marvellous developments ; or of chemistry, in 
the absolutely new world it reveals, — all these 
are by comparison simple to the vast, the com- 
plicated, the wonderful study of the relation 
existing between the physical and the ethereal 
worlds. The average status of real knowledge 
concerning this is hardly more than was the 
average knowledge of astronomy in the fif- 
teenth century. Even experience and observa- 
tion of the phenomena involved in the various 



Between the Seen and the Unseen, 229 

"manifestations" of intercommunication offer 
but a slight contribution to any intelligently 
comprehensive view of the subject. The gen- 
erally prevailing vagueness of idea concerning 
our own immediate future is extraordinary ; 
for life is one and indivisible. The event of 
death works no miraculous change of transfor- 
mation. Man does not "become a spirit" by 
the process of dying, which is a mere chemical 
change ; he becomes more and more a spiritual 
being, day by day, and year by year, as he de- 
velops his higher qualities, as he lives in the 
spirit, which is to live in justice and truth and 
generosity and love; to live in intellectual de- 
velopment and increasing sympathy and good- 
will to all humanity. He becomes less and less 
a spirit in proportion as he lives the life of the 
senses, and finds his interests and enjoyments 
on the sensual and the lower rather than on 
the spiritual and the higher plane. The "re- 
wards " and " punishments " after death form a 
merely figurative phase of expression. The 
reward of noble living is to achieve for our- 
selves noble qualities, to become noble in every 
fibre. The punishment of vice is to be vicious 



230 The Spiritual Significance. 

and low. The reward of study is iu the gain- 
ing of knowledge. The punishment of wasting 
time is in being ignorant and inconsequential, 
and in being unworthy to hold a place in the 
ranks of the scholar and the thinker. The 
undergraduates of any university find rewards 
and punishments, in this sense, awaiting them 
as they come out to take their places in the 
world. Each takes in time the exact place in 
the community for which he has fitted himself. 
Twenty years later one member of the class will 
be a man noble, honored, beloved ; another will 
be ostracized from all better life. But neither 
the one nor the other is part of an arbitrary 
system of "rewards" and "punishments," but 
each state is simply the outward result of in- 
ward qualities. "A man's fortunes are the 
fruit of his character," said Emerson. The 
acquirement of wealth is not a test. The money- 
acquiring instinct may accompany the higher 
and nobler qualities; it may accompany baser 
ones. But it lies with a man himself as to 
whether he shall have the respect and the con- 
fidence of the community in which he lives. 
If he fail to inspire it, or if, having acquired 



Between the Seen and the Unseen. 231 

it, he forfeit it, in that lies his punishment, and 
for it he alone is responsible. 

This analogy holds good for the experiences 
that await the man who enters the ethereal 
world. That which he has achieved he carries 
with him, be it great or small. If while here he 
has developed the loftier qualities of his nature, 
he enters on a realm whose conditions are more 
suited to them than those existing here, and he 
is correspondingly happy. 

Dr. Drummond has called attention to the 
deep significance involved in the words, "Thy 
will be done." " Now mark the emphasis on 
done,'' he says. " It is not that God's will be 
borne, endured, put up with. There is activity 
in his prayer. It is not mere resignation. How 
often is this prayer toned off with mere endur- 
ance, sufferance, passivity. * Thy will be done,' 
people say resignedly. ^ There is no help for it. 
We might just as well submit. God evidently 
means to have His way. Better to give in at 
once and make the most of it.' This is far 
from the ideal prayer. There is nothing noble 
in resignation of this sort, — this resignation 
under protest, as it were, and it disguises the 



232 The Spiritual Significance. 

meaning of the prayer, ' Thy will be done.' It 
is intensely active. It is not an acquiescence 
simply in God's dealing. It is an appeal to the 
mightiest energy in heaven or earth to work, to 
make more room for itself, to energize." 

Nothing could be more helpful and transform- 
ing in its influence on life than this new reading 
of the old, old words, " Thy will be done." As 
Dr. Drummond so well says, we have always 
used them very largely, if not wholly, in a spirit 
of resignation. At the extreme verge of sorrow 
and despair we have cried : " Nevertheless, not 
my will, but Thine be done." Resignation it- 
self has been vaunted as a high virtue, but it is 
nothing of the kind. It is far more nearly a 
vice. Because if a thing is good, is desirable, 
is according to the will of God, we should not be 
merely " resigned " to it ; we should espouse its 
progress with enthusiasm and joy ; we should 
identify ourselves with its achievement and ful- 
filment ; we should offer up our whole being on 
the altar of its perfecting ; and to be " resigned " 
only, like a blind mole on a hole in the ground, 
is a puerile attitude for a human being. Again, 
if a cause is not worthy and noble, to be " re- 



Between the Seen and the Unseen, 233 

signed " to it is most ignoble and cowardly. If 
a measure is not right, no human being should 
be '^ resigned" to it. He should oppose it with 
all his power and strength and mind. He 
should never cease opposing it. But when any 
movement is distinctly seen to he the will of the 
Lord, it is a man's business joyfully and ener- 
getically to co-operate with it, — not merely 
endure it. "Thy will be done; " as Dr. Drum- 
mond says, that term denotes activity. There 
is something to do. If God's will is to be done, 
then the object of man's stay on earth is to do 
it. And that is precisely the truth; that is 
what man is on earth for, and this doing God's 
will includes all of duty, all of privilege. Desire, 
in the sense of possession, is the first thing to 
be uprooted and plucked out in the life of him 
who would do God's will. 

" Life is the elaboration of soul through the 
varied transformations of matter." One takes 
the essence of things — their essential part — 
into his life, but the thing itself is temporary 
and perishes. To do God's will is to hold the 
polarity true to constant spiritual progress. Li 
the path of this progress, however, arise con- 



234 The Spiritual Significance. 

ditions that binder and entangle and impede. 
They are not arbitrary. They are the conditions 
that we have ourselves made, — sometime, — for 
when one puts an error into his life it is like in- 
troducing a poison into the body, and it works 
there. The good action, likewise, bears its 
fruits, and thus conditions are constantly being 
created. They have a certain tenure of existence. 
Every act and thought is like dropping a seed 
into the ground, which germinates, springs up, 
grows, and at last is cut down and destroyed, or 
is plucked and used, or decays. The results of 
these causes (which are known as karma) con- 
stitute a framework from which one can only 
extricate himself in certain ways. One is by 
simply accepting these results as they come, 
never seeking to discover their cause, or means 
of exterminating them, and thus allowing them 
to go on indefinitely, not only in this life, but 
through successive lives, to an extent impos- 
sible to foresee. Sometimes, when one turns to 
give himself with new and deeper consecration 
to the Divine, he will suddenly be confronted 
and surrounded by the most unjust and unkind 
and annoying things, that arise out of nothing, 



Between the Seen and the Unseen. 235 

apparently, and beset him. The most unde- 
served and inexplicable injustice, the miscon- 
struction of all his motives and acts, may so 
rise about him that he will be utterly discouraged 
at the outset. But he need not falter. Annie 
Besant explains this stage of spiritual experience 
very clearly when she says : — 

"The karma that would have spread over hun- 
dreds of lives will have to be passed through in a 
few, perhaps in one, and so naturally the path is 
difficult to tread. Family troubles come round the 
man; business troubles press upon him; troubles 
of mind and of body assail him. It may seem to him 
that his Master has forsaken him. Why, when, he 
is trying his best, should the worst befall him] 
Why, when he is living better than he ever lived 
before, should all these difficulties and pains assail 
him] It seems so unjust, so hard, so cruel, that 
when he is living more nobly than he ever tried to 
live before, he finds himself more hardly treated than 
ever before by destiny. He must stand the test ; he 
must refuse to allow any sense of injustice to pene- 
trate into his inner life. He must say to himself : 
* It was my own doing ; I challenged my karma ; 
what wonder, then, that I was asked to pay it 1 ' 
And, at least, he has the encouragement of remem- 



236 The Spiritual Significance. 

beriiig that the debt once paid is paid forever. 
Every karmic debt he pays is struck off from his 
life's ledger forever." 

Yet, besides the living out of karmic condi- 
tions, sw^iftly and all at once, precipitated into 
a short space of time, there is the highest 
possibility of all, — of overcoming it without hav- 
ing to live it out in detail, — to overcome and 
annihilate it by bringing to bear that infinite 
potency of spirituality, which, once achieved, 
holds in solution all conditions, or terminates 
and totally annihilates them. This is what 
Jesus meant when he said, " Overcome evil 
with good." For as man is divine, he can 
develop and exercise divine powers. He can 
lift up his heart with the petition, " Thy will 
be done," and enter into co-operation with the 
divine forces to do His will, and, as Dr. Drum- 
mond so truly says, there is activity in that prayer. 

Finer and more subtle than even the ether is 
the all-pervading power of spiritual energy. To 
enter into that high activity in doing the will 
of God is to enter into the atmosphere of this 
highest potency. The condition which we call 
heaven surrounds us as an ethereal atmosphere, 



Between the Seen and the Unseen. 237 

and the only separation between this ethereal 
realm, filled with the life and light of God, and 
the physical realm is the separation of condition. 
" Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom ; " 
that is, the selfish, the gross, cannot pass the im- 
palpable veil that divides the world of the 
senses from the world of realities. Let one 
learn to attach slight value to mere things and 
possessions and devote himself to the furtherance 
of truth. God has always been revealing Him- 
self increasingly to man. The very progress of 
all knowledge depends on the degree in which 
man is able to recognize and receive this revela- 
tion. 

As Mr. F. W. H. Myers has said : — 

" Unless some insight is gained into the psychical 
side of things, some communications realized with 
intelligences outside our own, some light thrown upon 
a more than corporeal descent and destiny of man, it 
would seem that the shells to be picked up on the 
shore of the ocean of truth will ever become 
scantier, and the agnostics of the future will gaze 
forth ever more hopelessly on that gloomy and 
unvoyageable sea. For vast as is the visible universe, 
infinite as may have been the intelligence that went 



238 The Spiritual Significance. 

to its evolution, yet while viewed in the external 
way in which we alone can view it, — while seen 
as a product and not as a plan, — it cannot possibly 
suggest to us an indefinite number of universal laws. 
Such cosmic generalizations as gravitation, evolution, 
correlation of forces, conservation of energy, though 
assuredly as yet unexhausted, cannot, in the nature of 
things, be even approximately inexhaustible." 

The new and deeper interest imparted to daily 
life by a clearer idea of its scope is not the least 
of arguments for a study of the spiritual signif- 
icance. To many a demonstration of the truth 
of immortality is required, — a physical evidence 
that the soul continues to exist in a palpable 
body. Such evidence imparts vividness to the 
conceptions of a future life, — to that world 
whose power of response to his aspirations is 
limited only by his power to aspire. 

This fuller conception of the continuity of the 
spiritual significance of life will, as Professor 
Hyslop says, "almost completely revolutionize 
the ideals of religion, morality, and politics. 
It will disturb dogmatic theology, but it will 
rejuvenate the church's moral influence by in- 
spiring confidence in the immortality of the 



Between the Seen and the Unseen. 239 

soul. In morals the economic idea of simply 
getting enough to live with will be changed to 
a spiritual ideal and to a serious regard for the 
hereafter." 

Psycho-physical science is the revealer of 
new truth ; and spiritualism, so far from be- 
ing superstition, is destined to prove, instead, 
that the Unseen world is as much a sphere of 
universal nature as our own and is the sol- 
vent of mysteries that have perplexed philoso- 
phers. 

The roll-call of those whom the world has 
termed " visionaries " is a notable one. At once 
there occur to the mind the names of Galileo, 
Copernicus, Galvani, Luther, Buddha, Mahomet, 
Wesley, Socrates, Harvey, Newton, Columbus, 
Franklin, Young, Watt, and Stephenson ; and 
Jesus himself, whose life and teachings empha- 
size the truth that " visions are the creators and 
feeders of the world." As the eternal comes to 
supplant the temporal, as the spirit lays hold 
on the true realities, it is seen that Judgment, 
Resurrection, Heaven, and Hades are typical 
names for conditions, and are the ever-present 
spiritual laws operating on every plane of life. 



^ 



240 The Spiritual Significance 

One convincing proof of the reality of an un- 
seen world around us inhabited by unseen beings 
was unexpectedly offered by experimental study 
of the magnetic relations which affect human 
life. M. le Docteur Moutin, a distinguished 
French savant of the Paris Faculty de M^decine, 
gave some important data of his own observa- 
tions in a paper before a scientific congress in 
London some two years ago. In this resum^ 
of experiences that extended over some twenty 
years, the facts seem to point to the conclusion 
that with many the partial release from the phys- 
ical organism resulting from magnetic treatment 
reveals to the subject a realm of conscious life 
unperceived by the bodily senses. Dr. Moutin 
says : — 

" The Baron du Potet, one of the first pioneers of 
mesmerism in England, once observed that ' magnet- 
ism has opened through somnambulism a door lead- 
ing into the invisible world.' Cahagnet, with his 
lucid subjects, has abundantly proved the aphorism, 
and it is much to be regretted that modern experi- 
mentalists, including nearly all SpirituaHsts, have 
neglected this modus faciendi. It is certain that a 
subject profoundly entranced by magnetic procedures, 



Between the Seen and the Unseen. 241 

as we say in France, and not by the hypnotic methods 
employed at the present time by a few medical men, 
is in communication with unseen beings, and is there- 
fore an intermediary whose consciousness functions 
differently from that of the majority of mediums, 
terming or believing themselves such, who obtain 
only trivial results, — automatic writing, movement 
of tables with contact, a variety of visions, or, more 
correctly, hallucinations, etc. Hence also the state- 
ments which emanate from these two classes of sub- 
jects are entirely different. What is the reason of 
this divergence 1 To ascertain its causes is the pur- 
pose of the present study. 

" In the profound state of hypnosis — I ask leave to 
employ this word, though I am scarcely an advocate 
of hypnotism — the spirit of the subject becomes 
more or less disengaged from its terrestrial bed-rock, 
and, receding, lives for the time being the spiritual 
life, seeing what takes place in the beyond and being 
able to furnish a tolerably clear notion, though not 
one altogether exact, concerning it. 

" The sleeper beholds more or less distinctly accord- 
ing to his capabilities. All clairvoyants do not 
perceive with the same precision, but all, notwith- 
standing, agree in affirming the same thing with 
regard to the existence of the soul. 
16 



242 The Spiritual Significance, 

" Without seeking to depend on the labors of my 
predecessors, nor yet on those of my contemporaries, 
I may observe, in passing, that all who have con- 
cerned themselves seriously with Puysegurism have 
reached identical conclusions as to the existence of 
souls and the possibility of communicating with these 
by means of somnambulists; my own experiences 
enable me to make the same deduction, and I base 
on them my affirmation of that which I hold to be 
true. 

" All those who study these questions will be aware 
that a subject, whether medium or somnambulist, is 
a sensitive who perceives that which a well-balanced 
being in the normal state is not able to discern; 
that he is often the sport of forces which are as yet 
badly defined, and that he often obeys these forces 
unwittingly. Thus, for example, every one knows 
that it is open to an operator to suggest verbally a 
thousand things to a subject who is sufficiently en- 
tranced, while the few only know and admit mental 
suggestion or the transmission of thought, — a matter 
outside our province, which is of far other import- 
ance. Subjects who present these phenomena are 
rare, very rare, it is true ; but powerful and reliable 
mediums are also rare. 

" During a period of many years I have made ex- 
periments with a number of somnambulists, but not 



Between the Seen and the Unseen, 243 

wishmg to bind myself exclusively to their state- 
ments, and with a view to controlling them, 1 have 
engaged my friends and pupils to verify the phe- 
nomena and communicate to me the result of their 
investigations. This result was identical absolutely 
with my own : I was therefore warranted in believ- 
ing that my clairvoyants had not deceived me and 
that they had not been themselves deceived." 

Dr. Moutin relates several instances, of which 
the following may serve as typical : — ■ 

" The subject, an individual named Moussol, aged 
forty years, supremely sceptical, affirmed the exist- 
ence of souls while in the magnetic sleep. 

" The first time that I entranced hira he beheld 
crowds at a distance, was attracted towards them, 
and sought to approach them, but it was not till the 
fifth sitting that he could describe their physical 
condition. 

"'Ah! at last. ... I see. . . .' ^What do 
you see % ' ^ My friends ! ' * Where are your 
friends r * Below, at a great distance, but how 
fair it is in that place and how beautiful are its 
hues ! . . . Stay, Louis ! . . . How very strange ! 
What a pace he is going at ! I cannot overtake 
him, and yet I long to come up with him ; there is 



244 The Spiritual Significance^ 

so much I should like to ask him. ... I was not 
there when he died.' 

" ' What are yt)u saying to me % Is it possible 
that this gentleman is dead whom you are trying to 
overtake ? ' 

" ' By Heaven, it is long ago, but you know well, 
it is Louis my brother.' 

" ' Explain yourself all the same ; he is dead. 
How should you be able to see him? How can you, 
who believe in nothing, experience such an aber- 
ration *? ' 

" * But it is true, it is true. I do believe in God, 
and I do perceive plainly that this concourse which 
I beheld first of all from afar is composed of the souls 
of people who once lived on the earth. . . .' 

" Before proceeding further, I should observe that 
this occurrence took place in the month of Septem- 
ber, 1879; that this was the first lucid subject I 
had met with ; and that my views were then in- 
clined altogether towards materialism, imbued as I 
then was with academical theories. I could not, 
therefore, have suggested any such notion to my 
somnambulist." 

Dr. Moutin proceeds to say : — 

"There is, therefore, no room for further doubt 
that psychic phenomena are real and undeniable ; 



Between the Seen and the Unseen, 245 

we possess scientific proof that the soul survives 
matter, and it is the somnambulism of Puysegur, 
long before Modern Spiritism, which has given us 
these proofs. 

" By the help of magnetism we are, in my opinion, 
enabled to make a thorough study of the faculties of 
the soul. As a fact, through the body we reach the 
soul, and as the bond which unites them is not broken, 
we can, in a way, even dissect it. We can, at will, 
study the mystery; we can do so more easily than 
with mediums, who, moreover, in most instances, 
produce only the phenomena of animism, so well 
described and distinguished by Aksakof. These, 
when they are truly spirit phenomena, are not sus- 
ceptible of our control, and escape us often at the 
very moment when we think that we have grasped 
them. 

" The world of the beyond would seem in every- 
thing similar to our own ; so also on most occasions 
it is difficult to say (though we are taught at times 
to our cost) whether we are dealing with a serious 
being or with a jester, while, on the other hand, 
knowing our somnambulists at once, Ave can appre- 
ciate them at their true value. 

" For more than twenty years I have studied both 
magnetism and spiritism ; I have witnessed many 



246 The Spiritual Significance. 

things which authorize me in maintaining that which 
I have advanced above until the contrary has been 
proved. 

" May my plain speaking, therefore, be excused, 
and may I be included among the most devoted de- 
fenders of Modern Spiritualism ] " 

Prof. Oscar Browning of Cambridge Uni- 
versity, England, relates an incident known at 
Oxford as the " Connington Ghost Story." It 
seems that Professor Connington, who held one 
of the important chairs of Oxford, was in the 
midst of the delivery of a course of lectures 
when he was warned by his physician that 
he had not two weeks to live because of the 
progress of some internal malady. Anxious to 
complete his lectures, he would not consent 
to rest, and as a matter of fact, he lay dying 
on an afternoon on which he was announced 
to speak, and so suddenly had this last illness 
come that no news of it had spread abroad 
among the students. Mr. Andrew Lang, in 
walking through one of the long passages lead- 
ing to the hall where Professor Connington was 
to lecture, met the professor in his cap and gown, 
with books under his arm. He thought nothing 



Between the Seen and the Unseen, 247 

of it until, at dinner that night, he was told of 
Professor Connington's death. 

"Impossible," he exclaimed. "Why, I saw 
him at three o'clock going to his lecture-room." 

Nevertheless it was true, and at the very time 
Mr. Lang saw him — or believed he did — the 
professor lay delirious on his bed, talking inco- 
herently of his lecture. Psychic science would 
assert that the subtle body, or the "etheric 
double," withdrew from the physical body and 
walked in the familiar way. 

There is a curious but authoritative experience 
of Bishop Wilberforce often narrated among his 
friends. It seems that when the Bishop was a 
young man he was a guest at a country house in 
England, — a very old estate that had formerly, 
if one mistakes not, been a monastery, and in 
the house there still remained the ancient 
library. At dinner on the day of his arrival 
Mr. Wilberforce looked around and wondered at 
not seeing at the table a young priest whom he 
had met on the stairs. For a day or two he 
continued to encounter the priest here and 
there about the house, and he finally asked the 
hostess regarding him. She replied that no such 



248 The Spiritual Significance. 

guest was in the house. Mr. Wilberforce was 
bewildered. One evening when he was writing 
in his room, suddenly the young priest again 
stood before him. " What do you want ? " 
asked Mr. Wilberforce. " Whatever it is, show 
me and I will try to aid you." The priest made 
a gesture of invitation to follow, and led Mr. 
Wilberforce through long passages into the old 
library, where he pointed to a certain volume. 
Mr. Wilberforce opened it and there fluttered 
out a page of manuscript. The priest pointed 
to the fireplace and Mr. Wilberforce complied 
and burned the paper. The hostess afterward 
confessed that there was a legend that the house 
was haunted by a priest, but that she had never 
believed it. After this night, however, he was 
seen no more. 

The student of all such phenomena becomes 
more and more convinced that in science lies the 
key to all the spiritual laws that underlie occur- 
rences that have heretofore been relegated either 
to the domain of falsehood and fraud, or to that 
of inexplicable mystery. 

Tennyson, in a letter to a friend written in 
1874, thus describes an experience of his own: — 



Between the Seen and the Unseen. 249 

"A kind of 'waking trance' (this for lack of a 
better word), I have frequently had quite up from 
boyhood, when I have been all alone. This has often 
come upon me through repeating my own name to 
myself silently, till all at once, as it were, out of the 
intensity of the consciousness of individuality, the 
individuality itself seemed to dissolve and fade away 
into boundless being ; and this not a confused state, 
but the clearest of the clearest, the surest of the 
surest, utterly beyond words, whose death was an 
almost laughable impossibility — the loss of person- 
ality (if so it were) seeming no extinction, but only 
true life. 

"I am ashamed of my feeble description. Have I 
not said the state is beyond words'? But in a 
moment, when I come back into my normal condi- 
tion of sanity, I am ready to fight for * Meine Liebe 
Ich,' and hold that it will last for seons of aeons." 

The demand of the hour is for a larger grasp of 
law ; for insight instead of dogma. Social prog- 
ress depends on right thinking. Socrates in his 
day excluded inquiry as to the movements and 
nature of the sun and the moon, and directed the 
attention of man to ethics and politics. Comte 
included the solar system as a legitimate matter 
for research, but excluded the study of fixed stars 



250 The Spiritual Significance, 

as unattainable, and a learned savant of the time 
of Dante declared that geography should only 
concern itself "with that part of the earth in- 
habited by us." Yet this conviction is hardly 
more limited than one that should assert that 
man, in his present life, has no concern with its 
extension into the higher realms which now 
and here are part of his environment. "The 
dead are no more in eternity now than they 
always were, or than we are at this moment," 
says Dean Farrar. The present life must be 
recognized as merely one of the phases in the 
evolutionary progress of the immortal being, and 
as offering a vantage-ground from which we can 
study the conditions of the future, which is the 
inevitable and the invariable effect of such causes 
as we ourselves set in motion, producing them 
by the series of choices that we make, each one 
of which creates its own conditions. Intelligence 
and morality are thus closely conjoined ; and the 
more clearly man realizes his own nature and 
his relations to the divine universe, the more 
nobly may he live and the more swiftly may he 
advance to the higher conditions of freedom and 
of happiness, in which he shall realize the life of 



Between the Seen and the Unseen, 251 

the spirit, which is joj and peace. The first 
requisite to this happier condition is in self- 
control, in its larger sense of control of thought, 
of deed, — of all that goes to make the quality of 
life. The acquirement of self-control in a com- 
plete and perfect sense is the achievement of a 
lifetime ; but the control of all the finer forces 
of nature would then be acquired also. That 
Jesus could control the elements was because he 
had achieved complete self-mastery. 

This control of one's mental life — the con- 
trol of thought — is the very first essential of 
achieving that harmony and elevation in which 
is developed that faculty of inner hearing, 
or of clairaudience. One cannot live the life 
of the spirit until he learns to control his 
thought. He cannot dwell on the spiritual 
plane until he learns to live the life of the spirit. 
A mind at peace, full of outgoing sweetness 
and love, is fitted to receive and recognize these 
high communications. Of course in this human 
life of ours we are not always at our best nor 
at our worst. We desire to live on the higher 
plane and to live the better and the nobler life, 
and we do so — part of the time I Now, if we 



252 The Spiritual Significance. 

can live on the higher plane and live the life 
of the spirit one hour out of the twenty-four, 
why can we not the other twenty -three ? If 
we can do so one day out of the seven, why can 
we not the other six days? Annoying and irri- 
tating things happen? Of course. That is a 
part of our spiritual discipline. How is one to 
achieve the grace of patience if his patience is 
not taxed and tried ? How is one to acquire 
the habit of serenity unless he is educated to 
it by annoyances ? To be serene and at peace 
when everything is delightful is no special 
virtue ; it is when things are the reverse of de- 
lightful that the quality is best cultivated. 

It would sometimes almost seem as if the be- 
lievers in the spiritual faith, of all others, had 
the most potent aids, the most wonderful en- 
couragement, to live the life of joy and peace 
and love. To know that the spiritual world 
is now and here; that we are now spiritual 
beings whose life is not broken or changed in 
its purpose by the event of death ; to know that 
the Unseen world interpenetrates the world of 
the Seen ; that our friends there are only more 
closely and tenderly our friends and companions 



Between the Seen and the Unseen, 253 

than was possible here; to know that every 
advance made in spiritual achievement draws 
one into higher and more perfect conditions of 
life ; that material losses and crosses are of very 
little significance in this world of spirit in which 
we dwell, — to have this realization is to have 
the utmost stimulus to press on to the high 
calling as sons of God. 

The more real and sigaificant life is that which 
is entered upon when the subtle body is released 
from its interpenetration with the physical. The 
ethereal body then enters into the corresponding 
ethereal world. For, as we have seen, the subtle 
body corresponds with the environment of the 
successive higher state just as the physical body 
does with the present environment. From this 
point can we follow our vanished friends ? Can 
psychic science penetrate and gain experimental 
knowledge of the regions to which Intuition and 
Philosophy, no less than Faith, have pointed the 
way ? " Can man by searching find out God ? " 
Can he, by study and analogy, continually ad- 
vance into a larger comprehension of the divine 
laws? Every achievement of the age has a 
tongue which replies to this question with tri- 



254 The Spiritual Significance. 

umphant affirniation. The future life of hu- 
manity is not to be darkened by the shadow of 
death, but, rather, to be illuminated and to be 
stimulated in thought and purpose by the vital 
encouragement that results from viewing life in 
its greater completeness, finding the change of 
form from the physical to the subtle body merely 
one event in its onward progress. Life here 
and now is capable of a diviner quality, which 
a clearer understanding of the close relations 
between the Seen and the Unseen will enable 
it to achieve. " The whole secret of the phys- 
ical has not been read until its power of becom- 
ing spiritual by service of the spirit has been 
discerned," said Phillips Brooks. " Every lower 
life is made to reach up and fulfil itself in a 
higher. The entire order of the universe sup- 
ports this proposition." 

The transition from life here, lived essentially 
in the atmosphere of high thought and noble 
aspiration, to the next plane, where all this 
diviner trend finds a still more congenial and 
stimulating environment, cannot be one that 
leaves between the two planes any chasm that 
Bunders the communion of spirit with spirit. 



Between the Seen and the Unseen, 255 

Canon Wilberforce bids us recognize "the dig- 
nity of life, the nothingness of death, the cer- 
tainty of immortality, the solidarity of humanity," 
And of those who have vanished from us into 
the Unseen he says : " I cannot but believe that 
they are very near to us, in a sense nearer than \ 
when in the restrictions of the flesh, and that \ 
they are affected by our conduct and condition." 
A supreme comfort lies in this thought, which 
we intuitively recognize to be a truth; the in- 
finite comfort of feeling that between them and 
ourselves the sweetest open communion exists ; 
that the understanding is clearer, the compre- 
hension larger, the sympathy more intimate, than 
was possible in the conditions here. "The soul 
in the body hears but dimly, and sees not at all 
the innumerable influences with which it is 
surrounded." It is as if when two or a group 
of persons were walking together, each blind 
and each hearing only partially, one of the num- 
ber suddenly regained perfect sight and perfect 
hearing. Then could he be much more to his 
companions than before; he could comprehend 
their nature, their environment, the incidents 
and experiences they were meeting, as he could 



256 The Spiritual Significance, 

not possibly have done when sharing their 
limitations. 

Then, too, all the logic of analogy, all the 
wider knowledge which science is now pouring 
out to the world, tends to support and to con- 
firm tlie probability that the real, the positive, 
the more significant life is that entered upon by 
casting off the physical body. The old tradi- 
tions alluded to the state after death as vague, 
shadowy, phantasmic. As well might the un- 
conquerable force of the electric current be re- 
garded as vague and feeble in comparison with 
the tangible and visible force of an ox-cart. It 
is the things unseen that are the most potent 
as well as the most eternal in their nature. The 
present world is the place where its inhabitants 
are, not so much living as preparing to live. 
All the enterprises of this part of life are 
valuable, — not in and of themselves, but as 
the means by which they exercise and develop 
the faculties of man. 

The change called death cannot be one to ab- 
solutely unknown regions and conditions. Our 
own spiritual faculties are laying hold of spirit- 
ual knowledge. We are finding out the spiritual 



Between the Seen and the Unseen. 257 

laws ; we are ourselves making constant advance 
into spiritual conditions. 

The poet Longfellow crystallized a truth in 
the lines : — 

" Believing in the midst of our afflictions 
That death is a beginning, not an end." 

There is the true point of departure, — that 
^^ death is a beginning, not an end." ^Circum- 
stances and conditions separate friend from 
friend in this life. The nearest and dearest 
relations must inevitably be subject to more or 
less partings and separations. And, after all, 
the separation by death is only one of these 
transient partings. To each and all sometime 
and somewhere the summons comes, and we, 
too, pass on and rejoin our beloved in a fairer 
world under happier conditions. Just what 
are these conditions ? 

It is not, perhaps, too much to assume the 
reality of communication between those in the 
Seen and in the Unseen. To array all the data 
that might be presented in favor of this assump- 
tion would be to encumber the present volume 
unduly, and the little narrative of personal expe- 

17 



258 The Spiritual Significance, 

rience that will be submitted in the next chapter 
must simply be judged on its own merits. The 
problem of communication between the Seen and 
the Unseen is one invested with far more subtle 
and complicated conditions than the two arbitrary 
ones of genuineness or of fraud. No one who 
is studying the new revelations of psychic law 
is, one may believe, a special pleader in any 
way. There can be but one common aim, — 
that of discovering and accepting the truth, 
whatever that may be. Is it not true that there 
could be no greater error — one might well say 
calamity — than to hold the truths of religion as 
commonly represented by the Christian Church 
in all its various sects and denominations as 
something on one side, and the possibility or 
certainty of spirit intercommunications on the 
other side, as antagonistic rather than as mutu- 
ally complementary truths ? One has little pa- 
tience with any formula that places the ^* Church 
versus Spiritualism," or postulates as antago- 
nistic "Christians and Spiritualists.'' If a 
" Spiritualist " is not a " Christian '' — Heaven 
help him ! And if a Christian is not a Spir- 
itualist, then the only conclusion is, that if 



Behveen the Seen and the Unseen. 259 

Spiritualism is true, then the matter of the 
Christian becoming also the Spiritualist, com- 
ing to include the truth of intercommunica- 
tion with the other truths of the Christian life, 
as taught by Christ and as taught by the 
Church, is simply a question of time. For all 
that is true will sometime be accepted by every 
one. It is a matter of evolution. " In Thy light 
we shall see light," wrote the psalmist, and as 
Dr. Brooks well said of this truth : " To him 
everything is comprehensible and capable of be- 
ing understood only as it exists within the great 
unfolding presence of God." Now, if the fact of 
intercommunion between those here and those 
who have passed beyond death really exists, then 
it is a truth, — one truth among those essential 
and sacred relationships that the soul of man 
bears to God, or that the spiritual man, tempo- 
rarily clad in a physical body, bears to God and 
to Jesus the Christ. While the question of this 
intercommunication is of the profoundest interest 
and importance, it is yet always and essentially 
subordinate to the supreme truth of our spiritual 
relation to the Divine ; for that is the larger ques- 
tion and includes the lesser one. I can live — 



260 The Spiritual Significance. 

you can live — all through this part of life with- 
out specific communication with even our nearest 
and dearest who are in the Unseen, but you can- 
not live, nor can I, without the perpetual in- 
tercourse with the Divine Spirit, without His 
leading, His care, His love. The former is desir- 
able ; the latter is essential. Yet there are those 
of us who believe that the lesser is included in 
the greater ; that the desirable is also interwoven 
with the essential, and that the Lord is equally 
the Giver of both in His divine ordering. 



PSYCHIC COMMUNICATION. 



After all, what an entrancing thing death is ! — Dr. Henry 
Drummond. 

My position, therefore, is that the jjhenomena of Spiritualism 
in their entirety do not require further confirmation. They are 
proved quite as well as any facts are proved in other sciences ; 
and it is not denial or quibbling that can disprove any of them, 
hut only fresh facts and accurate deductions from these facts. — 
Alfred Russel Wallace, D. C. L., LL.D., F. R. S. 

Notwithstanding my age and my exemption from the controver- 
sies of the day, I feel it my duty to bear testimony to the great 
fact of spiritualism. No one should keep silmt. — Fichte. 



PSYCHIC COMMUNICATION. 

At some future day it will be proved — I cannot say 
when and where — that the human soul is while in earth 
life already in an uninterrupted communication with those 
living in another world ; that the human soul can act upon 
those beings, and receive, in return, impressions of them 
without being conscious of it in the ordinary personality. 
It would be a blessing if the state of things in the other 
world and the conditions under which an interchange of 
the two worlds may take place — perceived by us in a 
speculative manner — would not only be theoretically ex- 
hibited, but practically established by real and generally 
acknowledged facts thus observed. — Immanuel Kant. 

HE intelligent and increasing interest 
in the question of communication be- 
tween those in the Seen and in the 
Unseen, not less than the eminence of the body 
of men and women associated under the name of 
the " Society for Psychical Research," have re- 
deemed the subject alike from flippant discussion 
or ignorant prejudice. There is a vast and a con- 
stantly accumulating mass of evidence of con- 
scious and intelligent communication which can 




264 The Spiritual Significance. 

no more be denied than can be the possibilities 
of the wireless telegraph. The results — so 
far as one may speak of results in what is 
still an initial and experimental stage — of 
the scientific investigation brought to bear 
on the phenomena which the world knew as 
Spiritualism have tended to establish the per- 
sistence of personal identity beyond death ; the 
possibility of conscious communication between 
those in the ethereal and those in the physical 
world; but this investigation has also led to 
the discovery of an entirely new class of the 
faculties and endowments of man which had 
never before been officially recognized and 
tabulated. More than a quarter of a century 
ago Sir William Crookes engaged in serious 
study of the spiritualistic phenomena. He 
may well be accepted as the head of a distin- 
guished group of investigators which includes 
Prof. Oliver Lodge, Mr. F. W. H. Myers, Dr. 
Richard Hodgson, Prof. William James, Profes- 
sor Sidgwick, Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace, Dr. 
Zollner, Dr. Desertis, and many other notable 
men of varying nationalities. These investiga- 
tions have been largely individual and to some 



Psychic Communication. 265 

extent incidental among otlier work of an 
absorbing nature carried on at the same time. 
Nor are these conditions without their signal 
advantages. If there is sometimes gain in 
the exclusive devotion to an idea, there is 
also a gain in being constantly able to test 
the validity of that idea by its relation to 
works and days; to give it no undue promi- 
nence as the zeal of monomania, but to let 
it take its chances in the scale of a wide 
and varied range of significances. So the 
fact that most of the investigators of the 
phenomena that Hume brought so prominently 
before Europe and that a host of latter-day 
psychics have kept alive, are men who are in 
the midst of important pursuits, — college pro- 
fessors, scientists, scholars, authors, meeting con- 
stant demands of the activities of progress, — is 
a rather fortunate fact in this phase of study. 
If, like Saul, they have not found a kingdom 
when they went forth on a lesser errand, they 
have found new phases of human life. Their 
indirect and unforeseen results are of transcen- 
dant importance and establish the truth that the 
spiritual self of man has powers, here and now, 



^266 The Spiritual Significance. 

of a nature that had never before been associ- 
ated with human life on the physical plane. 
The most important of these discoveries is that 
of multiple personality, due primarily to Mr. 
Myers. The number and variety of experiments 
in this line made on both continents contribute 
untold value to ethics and to psychology. 
Hypnotism and auto-suggestion, so closely allied 
with it ; thought transference, or telepathy ; the 
exteriorization of sensibility ; the strange animic 
force so ably discussed by Dr. Paul Gibier, — 
these and other discoveries offer demonstrable 
proof of the existence of an inner self, whose 
faculties far exceed those manifested through 
the physical organism and whose powers cor- 
respond largely to a different environment from 
that of the physical world. Much that was 
formerly believed to be the manifestations of 
" spirits " (as if a man only became a spirit 
after death ! ) at seances is now fully recognized, 
in the open light of science, to be the result of 
the psychic faculties or powers of persons in 
this life. Of course this includes both the 
fraudulent — of conscious intention — and those 
phenomena sincerely believed to have their 



Psychic Communication. 267 

origin in the Unseen, because the faculties that 
involuntarily produced them were not known. 
Uncritical acceptance has given way to intelli- 
gent discrimination. Psychology, medicine, and 
ethics have greatly advanced by means of dis- 
coveries which were a surprise to the discov- 
erers themselves. The physical phenomena of 
the stance room, even to slate- writing and to 
materialization, may be produced entirely by 
those persons who are present without any 
conscious deception or intentional fraud. So 
much any serious student of modern science and 
psychology must inevitably accept. It is not 
relinquishing the higher possibilities of a connec- 
tion between the Seen and the Unseen. It is 
in no way inimical to the simple faith of the 
believer in Jesus and His divine promises. On 
the contrary, it is a part of that life more abun- 
dant which the Christ promised to man. On 
the side of intelligence and of what Mr. Myers 
well calls "the intellectual virtues," these dis- 
coveries rank with that of the circulation of the 
blood. They are of untold importance to life in 
completeness of meaning. Nor do they in any 
way lessen the simple faith in Christ and His 



268 The Spiritual Significance. 

teaching — which of itself is enough — any more 
than discoveries in astronomy or in chemistry 
lessen the religious faith and feeling. 

The day, indeed, has passed when the realities 
of the Unseen are regarded as unworthy serious 
consideration ; for an age in which man sees 
through a solid wall by means of the Rontgen ray, 
or sends messages from continent to continent 
by means of the Marconi transmitter and the 
Guarini repeater ; or speaks by the human voice 
over a thousand miles of space ; an age which is 
on the very eve of perfecting the marvellous telec- 
troscope, which will do for the eye what the tele- 
phone has done for the ear, — it is not for such 
an age to refuse to consider the accumulating 
evidence that communication exists across the 
gulf we call death. " I am in continual amaze- 
ment," said Leibnitz, " at the nature of the 
human mind, of whose powers and capabilities 
we have no adequate conception." 

The initial condition of. establishing familiar 
and constant intercourse with those in the 
ethereal world is not by their materialization, but 
by our own spiritualization, — by the faith that 
makes faithful; the prayer that pleads for the 



Psychic Communication. 269 

help of Jesus, the Christ, to be uplifted into the 
divine communion. 

The initial question regarding this communi- 
cation is, not whether it is desirable, but 
whether it is true. The arguments against this 
theory which have been advanced by persons 
whose purity of heart and loftiness of character 
invest their convictions with claim to respect, if 
not to absolute acceptance, have their possible 
origin in the tenacity of impression made by the 
older theological teachings, in which the con- 
ception of death differs so widely from the more 
scientific and — may one venture to say ? — the 
more spiritual one of modern thought ; for does 
not man approach more nearly to God, does he 
not come into closer relations with Jesus, by a 
clearer knowledge of the divine laws of the 
universe ? Religion is, indeed, in its true sense 
as progressive as chemistry, not that God and 
His divine orderings change, but that man 
advances in a larger comprehension of these 
laws ; and these successive views of humanity, 
modified to a greater or less degree with every 
age, form the basis of all the phases of religious 
belief. 



270 The Spiritual Significance, 

When religion made of death an inscrut- 
able mystery, an irreparable sorrow, when it 
relegated all who had endeavored to follow 
Christ to some far realm of infinite holiness and 
infinite and impassable distance from human life, 
it is easy to realize how the reverent mind 
shrank from believing in the possibility of 
familiar intercourse. The dead were held to 
have become angels around the throne of God. 
The friend who loved us yesterday was supposed 
to have been so completely changed in both 
nature and environment that imagination faltered 
before any possible conception of his new experi- 
ences. This order of conception has been greatly 
modified, if not almost transformed, within the 
past fifty years, and while one cause has been 
that of the experimental demonstration of life in 
the Unseen as closely allied with our own, vari- 
ous other causes have contributed to the result, 
in the way of scientific advance in biology, in 
psychology, and in the nature of the forces of the 
universe itself, as well as that growth of mind 
" that widens with the progress of the suns." 

The Rt. Rev. Dr. Phillips Brooks, speaking 
of the need of growing enlightenment, said: 



Psychic Communication. 271 

" The world's religions have failed and are fail- 
ing to-day. They have been too much either 
mystic exaltations or hard methods of economy. 
Surely there is something better which they 
might be, by being both. Such the complete 
religion must be when it is perfectly revealed." 
Is it too much to hope that to this complete 
religion a truer realization of the nature and 
destiny of man and his relation to the Unseen 
world may contribute light^ which is the medium 
for constant communication, just as, in the phys- 
ical world, the air is the medium for the trans- 
mission of sound ? 

The entire drama of life is uplifted and simpli- 
fied when we relegate the event of death to its 
true place as an incident only, in the onward 
progress. In about 1886, Frederic W. H. Myers 
pointed out the truth of the "subliminal " or 
subjective self, -—meaning just what might more 
clearly be termed the spiritual self, — and it was 
Mr. Myers who first pointed out the law of 
telepathy between persons still in the physical 
body. It is Mr. Myers and some of his associ- 
ates in the Society for Psychical Research who 
antedated by some seven or eight years the dis- 



272 The Spiritual Significance. 

covery of this law before it was ever mentioned 
elsewhere. The assertion that telepathy is 
limited in its action to those who are still in the 
physical body is a misleading one, because the 
event of death is the mere throwing off of the 
physical body, and the telepathic intercourse 
between spirit and spirit is not affected by it ; 
save that it becomes somewhat clearer and 
easier when one of the two is freed irom the 
limitations of the physical. When both are free, 
then the ease and instantaneous intercourse by 
thought is, of course, still more perfect. The 
spiritual faculties of man are his real self. To 
exercise and develop those faculties in work, 
in generous expressions, in aid to others, in 
the communion of thought with the friends in 
the Unseen world, as well as in the Seen, is the 
true mode of development appointed by the 
Divine Power. 

Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace regards the facts 
of psychical research as in harmony with the 
constant advancement of science, and especially 
with the modern conceptions of matter and of 
the ether. 

To the relidous world faith in Christ and 



Psychic Communication, 273 

in immortality is untouched and unimpaired by 
either the reality or unreality of specific commu- 
nication between the two worlds. Yet to some 
minds it offers the only convincing argument. 
Professor Newbold of the University of Pennsyl- 
vania says that while he formerly doubted a 
future existence^ he now knoivs that it is true, 
because he has seen the evidence ; and, com- 
menting on this. Rev. Dr. Heber Newton ob- 
serves : " If Spiritualism offers even a chance to 
demonstrate existence after death, it deserves 
not contempt, but close scientific investigation." 
Blessed, however, are they who have not seen 
and yet have believed, and one of these is Bishop 
Moreland of California, who has recently said : 

" As a Christian and a spiritual being, I believe 
that communications with the spiritual world are 
reasonable and to be expected ; indeed, that our 
whole religion reveals it and requires it, and that, 
as a matter of fact, we practise intercourse with the 
spiritual world every day of our lives." 

The eminent group of representative names 
engaged in psychic research assures a certain 
authority to the concurrence of their convictions, 
18 



274 The Spiritual Significance, 

while among all, the results of Dr. Hodgson's 
work must be held as supreme in importance. 
Dr. William James is a busy professor in Har- 
vard, as is Professor Sidgwick in Cambridge 
(England) ; Prof. Oliver Lodge is now the presi- 
dent of an English college ; Sir William Crookes 
is a professional scientist, and Mr. F. W. H. 
Myers is an instructor and a literary man. Pro- 
fessor Hyslop holds an important chair in 
Columbia College ; and so, in one way or another, 
all the more prominent *^ psychical researchers " 
are inevitably engaged, for the most part, with 
other work, except Dr. Hodgson, who refuses 
whatever brilliant prospects would otherwise be 
his to devote his time and energy to this work, 
which Mr. Gladstone well characterized as "the 
most important before the world at the present 
time." 

Dr. Hodgson's words regarding his own experi- 
ence are convincing in their sincerity. 

"During a period of twelve years,"' he said, "I 
have had, through the mediumship of Mrs. Piper, 
communications with the spirits of those who have 
been for some time dead. During the first few 
years I absolutely disbelieved in her power. I had 



Psychic Communication. 275 

but one object, to discover fraud and trickery, and 
I had had plenty of experience with these. Frankly, 
I went to Mrs. Piper, with Professor James, about 
twelve years ago, with the object of unmasking her. 
To-day I am prepared to say that I believe in the 
possibility of receiving messages from what is called 
the w^orld of spirits. I entered the house profoundly 
materialist, not believing in the continuance of life 
after death, and to-day I simply say, / believe. The 
proof has been given to me in such a way as to re- 
move from me the possibility of a doubt. 

"The influence which guides Mrs. Piper now 
announced that in the future its action would be 
exercised in such a way as to diminish the distance 
which separates the two states, — the state before death 
and the state subsequent to death. The change 
took place in June, 1897. The earlier guides, Phin- 
uit, Pelham, and others, quitted in effect the circle 
of Mrs. Piper's influence, and their places were 
taken by two individuals in particular, who actually 
direct the communications which she receives. We 
recognize the first, who communicates by the voice, 
under the name of Imperator, and the second, who 
whites, is known as Rector. I have received from 
the first innumerable communications, especially on 
the relations which exist between Man and the 
Infinite." 



276 The Spiritual Significance. 

The problem of psychic research is so in- 
timately connected with the name of Mrs. Piper 
that a word regarding the methods of her 
mediumship may contribute to the elucidation of 
the phenomena produced through her organism. 
She becomes entranced ; a little table is drawn 
up at her left side with cushions on it, on which 
her head is supported. In this perfectly uncon- 
scious state her right hand is stretched out where 
a table with writing pad and pencils is placed, 
and her own hand writes the messages. The 
theory is that her hand is used as the instrument 
by the unseen person present, and this theory is 
one supported by so authoritative an array of 
testimony that no attempt to reproduce it will 
be made here. The records of the Society for 
Psychical Research offer such overwhelming 
evidence from representative names all over the 
world, that he who runs may read. Those 
who have experimented with Mrs. Piper's 
mediumship are not seekers — nor finders — of 
any physical phenomena. Her organism is 
apparently a species of telephonic transmitter, 
and the communication resolves itself into a con- 
versation of mingled speaking and writing, — 



Psychic Communication. 277 

oral on the part of the sitter ; written through 
the hand of Mrs. Piper on the part of those in 
the Unseen. 

Recent investigations into the nature of the 
human body offer knowledge that throws light 
on the mystery of mediumship. The name is 
associated with so much that is fraudulent and 
so much that, even if genuine, is utterly inconse- 
quential, that it has been a serious and largely 
an ungrateful task on the part of scientific men 
to study its phases; but such experiments as 
Colonel de Rochas of Paris has made in the ex- 
teriorization of sensibility, the experiments at 
the Salp^trifere in hypnotism and magnetism, and 
other demonstrations familiar to the reader, 
suggest how the mysterious mechanism of the 
physical organization is complicated with the 
spiritual life in a way that we are only begin- 
ning to understand. Prof. Benjamin Peirce, the 
great astronomer, defined man as a machine for 
converting material into spiritual force ; and a 
truer comprehension of the spiritual man will 
reveal more and more clearly that the denser 
body is a delicate and wonderful mechanism for 
the transmission of intelligence, which is but 



278 The Spiritual Significance. 

another name for the spiritual power that acts 
with creative energy on the world of matter. 
Dr. Le Conte says of this wonderful organ- 
ism : — 

" The keyboards of this marvellous instrument 
(the human body) are the nerve-terminals of the 
sense organs, in touch with the material world, and 
the brain-cells, in touch with the spiritual world." 

Dr. Hodgson and Professor James regard the 
organism of Mrs. Piper as telephonic and of a 
nature to lend itself to other intelligences than 
her own. The atmosphere of the unseen life 
which transmits messages through her organism 
is of a most refined and exalted type. The 
entire conversation is simple and natural ; and if 
it be not demoralizing to enjoy social intercourse 
with our friends here, it is difficult to understand 
why it should be when they have passed from 
the Seen into the Unseen. The condition of 
mediumship is believed to be determined by a 
certain preponderance in some organizations of 
the luminiferous ether which forms the trans- 
mitter as natuj-ally as the wire transmits elec- 
tricity. Yet all the preceding matter of this 



Psychic Communication, 279 

volume has been written to very little purpose 
if it does not plead for the evident truth that 
each human being, by virtue of his own spiritual 
nature, may so develop his own higher faculties 
as to come into telepathic communication with 
his friends in the ethereal world without resort 
to any specific mediumship. Still, when this gift 
is a genuine one, why should one feel any more 
reluctance to avail himself of it than he does to 
avail himself of the telegraph operator in order 
to send a message to a friend ? 

It may be permitted to state here in connec- 
tion with the mediumship of Mrs. Piper that a 
noble and exalted intelligence under the name of 
" Imperator " assumes the direction of the 
seances. The readers of a book called " Spirit 
Teachings " will recall a curious experience in 
the life of the late Rev. W. Stanton Moses, an 
Episcopal clergyman of England. Mr. Moses 
held a deep prejudice against the modern thought 
known as Spiritualism, and, strangely, his own 
hand began to write automatically, purporting to 
be controlled by a spirit signing himself Im- 
perator, and the arguments and objections in the 
mind of Mr. Moses were met with such impres- 



280 The Spiritual Significance. 

sive intellectual power and reverent beauty of 
hiofh feelins: that he became convinced of the 
authoritative source of this writing through his 
own hand. 

Paragraphs of which the following is typical 
were given to Mr. Moses : — 

" The operations of the Supreme are uniform in 
this as in all things else. The evil and the good 
are mingled. He does not use great messengers for 
that work which can be accomplished by more ordi- 
nary spirits. He does not send the high and exalted 
ones to minister conviction to an undeveloped and 
earth-bound spirit. Far otherwise : He proportions 
His causes to the effects which they are intended to 
produce. In the operation of the ordinary processes 
of nature, He does not produce insignificant results 
from gigantic causes. So in this domain of spirit 
agency. They who are crude in intellect and un- 
developed in aspiration, whose souls do not soar to 
heights of moral and intellectual grandeur, — such are 
the charge of spirits who know best how to reach 
and touch them ; who proportion their means to 
the end in view ; and who must frequently use ma- 
terial means for operating on an undeveloped in- 
telligence. To the uneducated in mind and soul, 
the spiritually or intellectually unprogressed, they 



Psychic Communication. 281 

speak in the language most intelligible to their wants. 
The physical operation of force that can he gauged 
by external sense is necessary to assure some — nay, 
very many — of existence beyond the grave." 

The reverence and purity of purpose that 
characterize Iinperator are indicated in such 
an invocation as the following, — one representa- 
tive of many v^^hich open or close a stance with 
Mrs. Piper : — 

^^ Holy Father, God of mercy, Life and Light, render 
ns Thy helping hand. Pour forth Thy blessings upon 
lis, Thy messengers. Give us Thy heavenly light 
that we may make Thy voice heard through all eternal 
ages. Give us strength, through which we may open 
the ears and eyes of Thy children. Father, it is 
Imperator Servus who asks for light. I humbly 
ask Thee to assist me in all I undertake." 

And again : — 

" Throw off all earthly and impure conditions of 
mind, and live in the pure atmosphere of God. We 
are His messengers. We have never ceased to in- 
spire some one, — to bring truth, light, joy, with 
Thy word. The messengers of the Most High visit 
all planets and teach His Holy Word. We walk in 



282 The Spiritual Significance. 

the light of God, and to us the way would seem 
dark were we not led by Him." 

In regard to the state of the one seeking com- 
munication from those in the Unseen, Imperator 
wrote : — 

" We feel intensely thy conditions. ... Do not 
worry. Trust us to give you all you need ; we 
are capable of so doing. We dislike to speak so 
much on this point, yet it is, after all, the important 
one. . . . We must reach thee as not of the earth, 
earthy, but in a more godlike and superior condition. 
It is His holy and divine will that we should return 
to thee, and we are not displeased with thy conditions. 
Usually we see thy spirit clearly, yet at times we 
see it imprisoned in thy body." 

The spiritual quality and condition of the one 
seeking communication through a psychic very 
largely determines the character of the com- 
nmnication. The same assertion is as applicable 
to any form of social intercourse in this world. 
What the friend or the stranger says to one is 
conditioned on his own capacity and the quality 
of his inner life. Imperator expressed some- 



Psychic Comraunication. 283 

thing of this truth, writing through Mrs. Piper's 
hand, when he said : — 

" Unless thy thoughts are clear and on a high plane, 
"we find it difficult to meet thee." 

A most important and determining factor in 
this intercommunication is thus seen to be the 
spiritual condition of the person on this side. 
Just in proportion to the degree in which man 
may live in the spirit, may he enter into the com- 
munion of spirit. The growth of the man or 
woman into recognition of higher things, into a 
perception of the invisible world, is just as 
normal as is the growth of the infant into the 
child ; of the child into youth and manhood. 

^'Do you think I could have a satisfactory 
sitting with Mrs. Piper ? " asks the novice. As 
well might he ask, " Do you think I can have 
a satisfactory talk with Dr. Edward Everett 
Hale ? " Whether he could, depends not wholly 
on Dr. Hale, by any means, but depends upon 
himself, his degree of understanding, his mental 
and moral quality, — in short, whether he is, or 
is not, fitted to enter into a sympathetic atmos- 
phere with this great and good man. And to 



284 The Spiritual Significance. 

have satisfactory meeting with even one's near- 
est and dearest who have gone on into the 
spiritual world and life presupposes some de- 
gree, at least, of understanding sympathy with 
the conditions of that life. 

It must be remembered that all psychic phe- 
nomena are normal, and are under a spiritual law 
in orderly sequence. Unquestionably the " me- 
dium" is but a temporary bridge, so to speak. 
The cruder physical demonstrations first aroused 
the world ; these have given place almost en- 
tirely to the forms of using the vocal organs 
of the medium to speak, or the hand to write. 
At first only an appeal to the physical senses 
would have aroused the world; but this form 
was only a temporary means, and when the 
world was aroused, then the end was served, 
\j and a finer and more subtle form, appealing to 
the mind rather than to the ear and eye, was 
instituted. 

The next phase will be the development of 
man's psychic faculties, enabling each individual 
to enter directly, without benefit of medium, 
into communication with those in the Unseen 
by means of the development of his own spir- 



Psychic Communication, 285 

itual nature. If, indeed, it be true that death 
is only "an entrancing thing," as Dr. Drum- 
mond phrases it, and is not that unspeakable , 

grief that it has been regarded ; if it be true 
that we may transfer all our love and our reality 
of recognition from the physical form that lies 
inanimate to the ethereal form that we do not 
see ; if we may comprehend that the reason we 
are unable to see it lies in the scientific fact that 
this subtle body is in a state of higher vibra- 
tion than the physical eye can command, but 
that we may know its reality as we know the 
reality of electricity, although unable to see it, 
— if all this be true, it is of such overwhelming 
importance as to compel every one to share 
whatever experience might be calculated to con- 
tribute any light on the problem. Death has 
been the one irreparable loss. Are we about 
to enter on a period in which this sorrow is to 
be transfigured to a new joy ? Are the spiritual 
faculties of man so to transcend this change of 
form as to bridge the gulf of separation and find, 
instead, a closer and more satisfying companion- 
ship than is possible to the life on earth? Is 
the world to enter on a period of receiving larger 



286 The Spiritual Significance. 

knowledge from the plane just beyond in a 
manner that shall be consciously and intelli- 
gently recognized? The trend of actual ex- 
periences — -of experiences which are becoming 
almost universal — points to this conclusion. 
Communications are received that involve, on 
the part of the person from whom the message 
comes, statements of matters unknown to the 
recipient, but which are afterward verified and 
which prove a continuity of consciousness from 
the life here to the life in the ethereal world as 
unbroken as on the part of one who had crossed 
the ocean and wrote to his friends from the 
other side. Thought-transference can hardly 
account for matter not known to the one to 
whom it is communicated. Much that he 
knows is not told; much that he does not 
know is told. 

All in all, the more one studies the whole field 
of psychic law and intercourse between the Seen 
and Unseen worlds, does it not seem that the 
conditions are full of subtle and complex varia- 
tions which cannot be sweepingly relegated to 
the too arbitrary divisions of genuineness or 
fraud, but which are simply a series of mental 



Psychic Communication. 287 

phenomena existing in both the physical and 
the ethereal world ? " Mediums sometimes 
cheat," admitted Mrs. Browning. " So do 
people who are not mediums." The friend in 
the Unseen often forgets certain things. So 
does the friend in the Seen. Do we not, then, 
find that all the variations of phenomena that 
perplex us in dealing with those who have 
passed out of the physical world have their 
prototype in all our dealings with those in the 
physical world? For myself, at the present 
status of whatever study and research I have 
been enabled to make, I find this true : I find 
that all intercourse, either by letter, telepathy, 
or viva voce, with all my friends or acquaint- 
ances or with strangers, on the present plane of 
life, presents a similar and a corresponding range 
of phenomena to that which I recognize in all 
forms of communication with those who are on 
the plane of life just beyond. I find in myself, 
and in my associates in this world, curious 
lapses of memory, unaccountable moods, incon- 
sistent mental attitudes, inexplicable attractions 
and repulsions, — all the variation of phenomena, 
indeed, that I encounter in intercourse and 



288 TJie Spiritual Significance, 

association with my friends in the Unseen 
world. 

What then ? Does not one take heart to 
enter on renewed effort with this realizing sense 
of the continuity of life ; that all advancement 
made to-day is felt to-morrow ; that all achieve- 
ment made this year is so much gained for next 
year; and not only in this specific way, but 
also that every advance made uplifts one more 
and more into the region of intenser life, of 
nobler purposes, where progress proceeds in an 
accelerated ratio ? On this upward way are en- 
countered unseen companionships of the loftier 
order. The potent influence of the friends we 
do not see has been erroneously relegated to the 
mystical realm, rather than recognized as one 
of the most actual and practical factors in 
daily life. " Who knows the pathways ? " says 
George Eliot. '^We are all of us denying or 
fulfilling prayers ; and men, in their careless 
deeds, walk amid invisible outstretched arms 
and pleadings made in vain." The best re- 
sults of all true culture are in that they so 
refine and exalt the real nature of the indi- 
vidual that he becomes more susceptible and 



Psychic Communication, 289 

more sensitive to these unseen influences that 
are around him to lead him upward in spir- 
itual life. 

" What would this life be," said Mrs. Brown- 
ing, — "what would this life be if it had not 
eternal relations? Nothing would be worth 
doing, certainly. But I am what many people 
call a 'mystic/ and what I myself call a 're- 
alist/ because I consider that every step of the 
foot or stroke of the pen here has some real 
connection with and result in the hereafter. 
'This life's a dream — a fleeting show?' 'No, 
indeed. Everything is worth doing, — every- 
thing good, of course, — and everything that 
does good for a moment does good forever. 
I believe in a perpetual sequence according to 
God's will, and in what has been called a * cor- 
respondence' between the natural world and 
the spiritual. . . . What comes from God has 
life in it, and certainly from all the growth of 
living things spiritual growth cannot be ex- 
cepted." 

The unbroken continuity of life is the one 
supreme fact that makes for all achievement 
that is of value and for all progress and happi- 
19 



290 The Spiritual Significance. 

ness ; and how this truth is concentrated in the 
one line from Robert Browning : — 

" T^o work begun shall ever pause for death." 

In the attempt to select, from the mass of ac- 
cumulated evidence, incidents of a nature to 
relate in this volume, the embarrassment is in 
the fulness and the vast masses of the data. 
These conversations with one in the Unseen, 
carried on by means of the writing through Mrs. 
Piper's hand, were all more or less linked to- 
gether, and, what is the most important element 
in it of all, they were constantly relating them- 
selves, in the intervals between the sittings, to 
the actual course of life in daily affairs. No one 
seance stands out isolated ; each and all bear 
the interrelation of a constant communion of 
spirit to spirit, which apparently persisted — 
and persists — between the friend referred to 
and myself. Thus, all the stances with Mrs. 
Piper were like actual talks, viva voce, in cer- 
tain meetings with a friend with whom one 
has been all the time in perpetual daily corre- 
spondence. At such meetings friends are apt 
to speak to each other more or less of the 



Psychic Communication. 291 

matters which they have mutually discussed in 
their daily letters. If telepathic intercourse 
may be substituted for epistolary correspondence, 
there is the analogy of the communications re- 
ceived through Mrs. Piper's hand, as relating 
itself to my own constant telepathic intercourse, 
day by day, w4th this friend in the ethereal world. 

To those who have made a special study into 
the science of communication if it be one, two 
phases are experienced, — the one telepathic 
and direct, from spirit to spirit; the other ob- 
jective through the medium employed. These 
two relate themselves to each other constantly ; 
the objective form often making reference to 
some mental state which the sitter is aware 
of having experienced. Yet, at the same time, 
things that are strongly in one's mind will not 
necessarily be given through the medium, and, 
conversely, statements are made which the sitter 
only learns then and there for the first time, 
and which he may afterward verify. 

One instance in which subsequent events 
seemed to corroborate the theory of direct tele- 
pathic intercourse with those in the life beyond 
was as follows : — 



292 The Spiritual Significance. 

Returning from Europe at one time soon after 
she had passed into the Unseen, it was my inten- 
tion to journey onward to that far island of the 
Pacific so associated with her presence. Sitting 
alone late one evening, I suddenly felt her draw 
near ; and her words, though inaudible to the 
ear, fell clearly on my mind, when, calling me by 
name, she said : ^^ Do not go ; all you want will 
come to you here." The counsel commended 
itself to my acceptance, and within two months 
the four persons most closely associated with 
her during her stay in that far island of the sea 
had come into the immediate vicinity of my 
home, and to have made the journey would 
have been to miss meeting them. This ex- 
perience seemed to confirm the reality of the 
apparent message from her that the desire would 
be met by remaining at home. Often, in stances 
with Mrs. Piper, conversations that had been 
held in my room would be commented upon; 
and in one case a statement made regarding a 
decision of her own before her death was vehe- 
mently denied. Later, the assertion was found 
to have been erroneous, as she claimed (writing 
through Mrs. Piper's hand), although the error 



Psychic Communication, 293 

resulted only from a natural and almost inevit- 
able misapprehension on the part of the person 
making the statement, who had every reason to 
believe that it was true. Now, in this study of 
psychic communication, still in its experimental 
stages, every fact contributes to the establish- 
ment of truth. If those in the ethereal world 
understand conversations here, either by hearing 
the words spoken or perceiving the vibration in 
the ether, — ■ which may correspond to what we 
see as writing, — it is a fact with which to 
reckon. One of the modern advertising methods 
is to flash words on the air, as if written in 
letters of fire, by means of electricity. It may 
be that thought, as the very highest and most 
intense potency known, writes itself in the ether 
every time we speak, and that those in the ethe- 
real world whose minds are in sympathetic com- 
munion with our own thus read the words that 
we speak. At all events, it was constantly evi- 
dent that she took up the possibilities of psychic 
communication from her new life with that same 
intense ardor that characterized her here when 
she experimented with Planchette; when she 
entered so ardently into the wonder of the tele- 



294 The Spiritual Significance, 

phone when it was first invented, or gave herself 
to so exhaustive an investigation of the Mormon 
problem. The insistent manner in which she 
penetrated into facts characterized this intelli- 
gence which was flashing constant communica- 
tions from the Unseen, and which evinced such 
a keen persistence in experiment by means of 
the organism of Mrs. Piper. The absolute iden- 
tity of expression with those of her own when 
here was a striking feature of the continued in- 
tercourse. 

It would almost seem that the entire extermi- 
nation of materialism is the heaven-destined 
work of psychic research; or, to phrase this 
better, psychic research, conducted as it is by 
leading scientific men, whose conclusions must 
perforce be accepted as true by all intelligent 
people, is making the scientific demonstration 
which is the corollary of religious teaching. 
Jesus said that blessed were they who had not 
seen, and yet had believed ; but there are minds 
so constituted as to be more or less impervious 
to purely spiritual recognition, and although to a 
great degree spiritual things must be spiritually 
discerned, still, to a certain degree also, spirit- 



Psychic Communication. 295 

ual things can be scientifically proved and 
demonstrated. 

One could not, however, affirm that the 
present is a materialistic age. On the con- 
trary, we are so entering into a practical knowl- 
edge and use of the forces in the Unseen, 
and into such a beautiful consciousness of the 
larger life, that it is an increasing joy to live. 
Is it not indeed true, as that most eminent 
biblical scholar. Rev. Dr. Briggs, said from the 
pulpit of Trinity Church in Boston, that the world 
is advancing from the age of faith to the age of 
love? The best evidences of spirituality — its 
highest fruits — are love to God and man ; and 
truly, if man love not his brother whom he hath 
seen, how can he love God whom he hath not 
seen? The world is coming into the age of 
love; man's spiritual nature is developing so 
that in his daily experiences he is able to persist 
because of the light of larger hopes and of a 
faith informed by knowledge, and to endure as 
seeing Him who is invisible. In an age when 
man discovers the nature of the stars, when he 
penetrates the secrets of the universe, shall he 
not learn to know the nature of his owji life ? 



296 The Spiritual Significance, 

Psychic research is one of the divinely appointed 
factors of the day in leading men to a truer 
knowledge of the nature of life and its con- 
stant evolutionary progress toward the Divine. 
Still, it is probably true that even the greatest 
leaders in this work feel themselves to be 
as yet only on the threshold of the opening 
revelation of knowledge. Mental phenomena 
are so varied in their character that no one law 
of identity can apply to all. The communications 
given through a medium, for instance, may be 
from a friend in the Unseen, or from a friend 
still in the physical body, or from the subliminal 
self of the sitter ; and whether its origin is one 
or the other must be determined just as we 
determine the varied phenomena of intercourse 
with our friends in the physical world. 

" What the spiritualists ascribe to friends in 
the Unseen I ascribe to God," remarked an esti- 
mable lady one day. 

Certainly we may all ascribe everything to 
God ; only is it not possible that in the part 
of life a little farther on, just as in the life 
here, He works by means and not by miracles? 
If one gives a pair of shoes to a man who needs 



Psychic Communication, 297 

them^ it is primarily God who thus meets the 
poor man's need, only He does not materialize 
shoes before him, as a miracle, but puts it into a 
man's heart to buy and give them. God wants 
to send a poor family a load of wood, but He 
does not precipitate it through the roof; He 
puts it into the heart of some one to act as his 
messenger. Our great reward in this part of 
life, in endeavoring to live in purity and prayer 
and abounding good will, is that we may be not 
quite unworthy to be co-workers with God in this 
way. Is it not conceivable that our friends in 
the Unseen thus find their employment and 
enjoyment in all forms of co-operation with the 
Divine Power, to carry out His will, to give His 
messages, to minister, in short, in every possible 
way ? The highest and noblest among us here 
minister most largely and truly to humanity. 
Does not the analogy hold true as we develop 
and progress ? 

The onward progress of man will comprehend 
the development of his spiritual faculties so that 
he shall no longer need to resort to any special 
" mediumship " in order to hold intercourse with 
friends in the Unseen ; but by the unfolding of 



298 The Spiritual Significance. 

his own powers he shall see and hear what is 
beyond the present usual range of eye and ear. 

There can be little doubt that humanity is 
pressing onward with an accelerated ratio of 
development into the finer perceptions and 
the clearer knowledge of the nature of life 
considered in the light of spiritual evolution. 

It has been objected that much of the com- 
munication offered by the study of members of 
the Society for Psychical Ressarch is of a " ma- 
terial" character. A writer in "The Catholic 
Times" has said: — 

" I do not for a moment say that such communi- 
cation is not possible, but I do say that to think for 
one instant that the dead would communicate with 
those whom they loved in this world ou such sub- 
jects as these is not only monstrous and impossible, 
but also wicked and blasphemous. ' As is the earthy, 
such are they that are earthy.' And very earthy 
indeed are these communications from the dead, — not 
one word of hope or encouragement to those who 
are left behind, no message of love nor any warning 
as to a future world, nothing but trumpery recol- 
lections of certain unimportant and insignificant de- 
tails of their lives which happened to be unknown 



Psychic Communication. 299 

to the relative on earth. If these be the subjects 
on which the thoughts of the departed dead dwell 
and in which they seek consolation, what hope is 
there in any heavenly perfection, and what trace is 
there of the image of the heavenly which Saint Paul 
says we are to bear 1 " 

Nor does this seem altogether unreasonable 
to those who hold sacred the teachings of the 
Church and the Divine Word. Yet may there 
not be a basis of mutual understanding on 
which the writer of the above paragraph and 
the student of psychical research may meet ? 
Might it not be conceded that the initial ques- 
tion in these communications is that of iden- 
tity, and that the tests of identity are neces- 
sarily those involving the memory of the life on 
earth ? Still more, may it not be conceded that 
if these recollections include facts unknown to 
the friend on earth, but which he afterward 
verifies, the test is more absolute in that it elimi- 
nates the explanation of mind-reading on the 
part of the medium, or of unconscious thought 
transference, which are always possible ex- 
planations of the phenomena involved when the 
matter given is already known to the sitter ? 



300 The Spiritual Significance. 

It is often the most insignificant detail that 
carries the greatest weight in presumptive evi- 
dence. It is not, however, true — even restrict- 
ing the present inquiry to the work through Mrs. 
Piper alone — that the entire body of the com- 
munications received are of a trivial quality. It 
is hoped that the reverse may be shown even in 
this one chapter devoted to the more technical 
illustration of these experiences. Sir William 
Thompson says that science is bound by the 
everlasting law of honor to face fearlessly every 
problem which can fairly be presented. Cer- 
tainly this problem of the interrelations between 
the two worlds of the Seen and the Unseen is one 
whose importance appeals equally to both sceptic 
and believer, and the only desire on either side 
can be simply to ascertain the truth. It does 
not necessarily follow — may we not believe — 
that the thoughts of those who have passed into 
the life just beyond dwell to any extent on " in- 
significant details of their lives on earth " simply 
because, as matters of test and identity, these are 
sometimes cited. A man sojourning in Rome 
or in London, involved in experiences of the 
most serious and momentous nature, might still, 



Psychic Communication. 301 

in a letter to his family in New York, refer 
to details or facts that would seem to the world as 
very trivial and quite unworthy to hold a place 
in his mind. Is it not a truer reading of life 
to feel that attention to comparatively insignifi- 
cant details is not incompatible with the utmost 
breadth of mind or exaltation of purpose ? Yet, 
as has been said, these communications, even 
limiting our inquiry to those through the organ- 
ism of Mrs. Piper, are far from being without 
" a word of hope or encouragement to those 
who are left behind " or of " messages of love or 
warning." 

The initial truth in this reconstruction and 
enlargement of the Christian faith which appears 
as the result of a larger acquaintance with the 
divine laws, is the realization that those in this 
world are not " left behind " by those who die 
in any sense save so far as they individually 
fail to achieve spirituality of life. Surely, this 
achievement is the privilege of humanity here 
and now, and just in proportion as it is accom- 
plished, one is already an inhabitant of the 
spiritual world and in natural communication 
with its other inhabitants, for we must bear in 



302 The Spiritual Significance, 

mind that what we call heaven is a condition 
and not a place. Scientific investigation in its 
essential nature is inevitably based on facts of 
the outer world, and not on opinions or expres- 
sions. If A and B, who have been close friends 
on earth, are suddenly separated by death, the 
fact that B remembered some seemingly trivial 
incident in their companionship on earth might 
be a striking test of individuality ; while an elo- 
quent and uplifting description of paradise, or a 
moral counsel of infinite value in itself, might 
still fail to establish that one question of his per- 
sonal identity. The establishment of this is not, 
then, a mere interest of A's alone, but it be- 
comes a factor in a chain of presumptive evidence 
to prove or disprove, as may be, the hypothesis 
that between spirit and spirit, irrespective of the 
physical body, intercourse may exist. If this 
change that we call death is of a far less dis- 
tinctive character than has been heretofore be- 
lieved, it is the most important discovery at the 
present time before the civilized world. 

The reproach of triviality in communications 
is not, indeed, entirely from those on this side. 
In one communication from the ethereal world it 
was said : — 



Psychic Communication. 303 

" . . . If those on earth would put sympathy, 
feeling, and earnestness into their desire to get some- 
thing from the spiritual world, it is an unmistakable 
fact that they would receive it." 

The communications from the intelligence 
signing himself " Iraperator " indicate the rever- 
ent and uplifting thought that prevails in the 
world beyond, even as in the world here, among 
the more spiritually developed. 

At one time Imperator wrote of love : — 

"It would be impossible to explain for the under- 
standing of mortal minds what the word ' love ' really 
means. It is the divine essence of God Himself. 
Man, where the spirit of love is not in him, is not 
in rapport with God." 

Again this noble intelligence wrote : — 

" We do not desire to give a long line of inco- 
herent statements ; on the contrary, we desire to 
teach thee all about God and His divine and won- 
drous workings during the past, middle, and present 



What are the occupations of the life beyond ? 
Perhaps the first condition for entering on this 



304 The Spiritual Significance, 

quest is to realize that the physical body is but a 
transient phenomenon, and has little determin- 
ing power over the spiritual being who is there- 
by related by it, for a season, to the physical 
world. The scholar, the thinker, the statesman, 
the inventor, the discoverer, the teacher, the 
poet, the man of affairs, — or the ignorant, the 
vicious, — what and where are each and all 
when they vanish from human sight ? Is it not 
according to the law of spiritual evolution that 
each advances along the line of the forces he in- 
augurated here, — his faculties unfolding and 
achieving constantly higher planes of action ? 

When at almost every stance with Mrs. Piper 
I have asked her the question, " What are you 
doing now ? " the reply has always indicated the 
natural continuity of progress. At one time she 
replied : '' I have been writing the history of my 
experiences since coming here, for distribution 
among the denser spirits." 

One notable fact in this higher life is that the 
motive of work is changed from self-interest — 
in the way of remuneration or fame — to the 
interest of co-operating with the divine powers 
in helping and uplifting all who are in need. 



Psychic Communication. 305 

This aid may be by teaching and by awakening 
the moral faculties ; or by contributing intel- 
lectual stimulus through books and lectures, or 
by penetration into the higher laws of nature, 
revealing them to the comprehension even as 
great scientists and inventors reveal them in this 
world, save that these various occupations are 
all on a larger and a more important scale. The 
psychic body subsists by its spiritual energy. 
It obeys the slightest bidding of the soul. If we 
could imagine all the work of the world here 
as accomplished from the inner spring of love 
as a motive, — love of man and devotion to 
God, a desire to enter increasingly into co- 
operation with His plan for mankind, and to 
make ourselves His ministers, — if one could 
imagine a life like this on earth, it would be a 
not untrue prototype of that beyond the change 
of death. It is, indeed, simply the elimination 
of the physical conditions, the living in the 
spiritual significance of life. 

At one time two sittings with Mrs. Piper, 
held under the auspices of the Society for Psy- 
chical Research, were arranged for me by Dr. 
Hodgson for two consecutive days, and on the 
20 



306 The Spiritual Significance, 

second of these I asked her to tell me — as •typi- 
cal, of life in the Unseen — just what she had 
been doing from the hour I left her the day before 
until I was again at Mrs. Piper's. 

She wrote : — 

" I was rather tired after talking with you so 
long, and I walked in the garden awhile to 
refresh myself, and then we all went to the 
temple and heard a great lecture by a very bril- 
liant man on ' Light.' He analyzed its com- 
position and its relation to color. A great many 
scientific people w^ere there and discussed the 
subject after the close of the lecture. Then we 
came home, and I sat down talking to my father 
and mother, and then I said : * I must look into 

earth life and see what [mentioning my 

own name] is about.'" 

" And did you see me ? " I asked. 

" Yes, you were sitting by the window, with 
your hands full of my letters." 

As only one night had elapsed, this period 
was fresh in my memory, and her reply described 
precisely my occupation at the time. I was 
then engaged in the writing of her biography, 
and in connection with the work I had been 



Psychic Communication, 307 

examining packages of her letters written to 
me over a period of fifteen years. 

My friend in the Unseen continued : — 

" And I said to you, ^ Dear, I do not come 
alone, but I bring a friend with me.' " 

" Whom did you bring ? " I questioned. 

"Rosa Bonheur," she replied. "She was 
attracted by your writing about her." 

It had been my privilege to meet Mademoiselle 
Bonheur at her home in France ; and at her death, 
which occurred about this time, I had been 
engaged in writing an article on her life and 
marvellous art. 

"And after you and Mademoiselle Bonheur 
had left my room, what did you do then ? " I 
questioned further. 

" I had a period of repose," she replied, " and 
this morning I have been at a musical convention 
with Addie Phillips. We are composing some 
music together." 

Adelaide Phillips, the great singer, had been 
an intimate associate of my friend, and they 
were always much together up to the time of 
the death of Miss Phillips. 

Now here was a perfectly rational and natural 



308 The Spiritual Significance, 

account of the experiences of twenty-four hours, 
indicating the same life of intellectual activity 
and artistic purpose that she lived while on 
earth. 

In Lowell's poem on Channing he indicates 
a probable state of the life beyond in the 
stanza : — 

" Thou art not idle ; in thy higher sphere 
Thy spirit bends itself to loving tasks, 
And strength to perfect what it dreamed of here 
Is all the crown and glory that it asks." 

Canon Lytleton of England, touching the 
nature of the life beyond in one of his dis- 
courses, said : — 

"I believe that we may worship God in doing 
His will as well as in joining the praises and prayers 
of the great congregation. And I cannot think that 
the whole condition of our existence will be com- 
pletely changed, our very nature not only transformed 
but unmade, when we enter our heavenly rest. Our 
occupations may be different, but all occupations 
will not be at an end. If we are to argue at all 
from the analogy of Scripture, there can be no doubt 
upon this point. What is the heavenly rest now? 
What is the rest of the angelic host % Cherubim 



Psychic Commtinication. 309 

and seraphim do indeed cry, 'Holy, Holy, Holy,' 
as they veil their faces before the awful majesty in 
which they stand, but they have wings and they 
have feet, as servants ever ready to do the will of 
Him who sitteth upon the throne." 

Certainly the diversities of gifts will find their 
fuller occupations and achievements beyond. 
The heavenly rest is a life of harmonious action. 
" My Father vrorketh hitherto, and I vrork," said 
the Christ. If the life of mere contemplation 
is not the highest on earth, why should it be 
in heaven ? Does not all spiritual energy find 
in expression its fulfilment ? 

On the occasion of another seance with Mrs. 
Piper, my friend in the Unseen came, and after 
predicting a certain action on the part of a 
mutual friend, she said : — 

" I know he will. I give this for a little test. 

You see, Dear , I am looking for tests a 

little." 

" You are looking for tests as we are ? " 
"I wish you to know that I am intensely in- 
terested in returning here," she rejoined with 
her characteristic vehemence, "and I am anx- 



310 The Spiritual Significance, 

ious that my wishes should be carried out, 
and one of my special desires is to be able to 
impress my friends on earth and make them un- 
derstand just what I wish them to do. I will 

go to and whisper in his ear, so to speak, 

and give him special instructions as to what 
disposal to make of those matters." 

Her desire that the person in question should 
not be informed of this stance and of any 
communication with her was scrupulously ob- 
served ; but all the details that she had declared 
she would " whisper in the ear " of the in- 
dividual alluded to were actually carried out 
by him, apparently as the results of his own 
judgment, — details involving no little com- 
plexity of business affairs. If she herself did 
not impress her wishes upon him telepathically, 
then was the occurrence one of a long chain of 
most extraordinary coincidences. In reply to the 
question as to the best conditions for this tele- 
pathic intercourse to exist, she replied that it 
depended on harmony. 

" What do you see when in my room ? " I 
one day asked her. 

"Well, Dear, when I am actually in your 



Psychic Communication. 311 

room, I see your spiritual body and the material 
body also, yet the material is much the darker 
of the two, and yet I see them both ; and the 
outer one looks like the outline of a portrait." 

"Can you see my gown, for instance, its 
color, or general effect ? " 

" Yes, at times, yet not at all times." 

"Would it depend on my state of mind 
whether you saw it more or less clearly ? " 

" Not especially that. Dear ; but on all other 
conditions." 

" Is there anything I can do to make the con- 
ditions better for you to be near me ? " 

" Yes, when your thoughts are with or upon 
me, so to speak, and when you are in an espe- 
cially rested condition, I come more easily." 

As an indication of the conditions that make 
possible the direct intercourse between spirit 
and spirit came this counsel from her : — 

"... You know my heart, and nothing could 
change my love. But I have been disturbed over 
some things, and I ask you to grant me the favor to 
listen when I speak to you. Keep very calm and 
I will speak directly to you. I wish you to get the 
best, the very best, out of life, and if you strive for 



312 The Spiritual Significance, 

this, such happiness as you never dreamed of awaits 
you here. . . . There is nothing on earth you need 
fear. . . . Live in the body as long as you can." 

One very striking instance in this series of 
stances with Mrs. Piper is the story of a ring 
that had belonged to my friend, and vi^hich be- 
came the means of a test communication which 
is in part recorded in the Third Series of " The 
World Beautiful," but as its sequence had not 
been reached when that volume was published, 
a brief resum^ will be given here, together with 
the impressive denouement. 

Among other articles of jewelry that had be- 
longed to my beloved friend there came into 
my possession a ring engraved within, " January 
14, 1878." My first meeting with her had been 
in October of 1880, and I had no conceivable 
idea as to where she had been in the January 
of 1878. I was very curious to see what she 
would tell me of this inscription in the ring 
at the next stance after recei\dng it, and I in- 
quired what it meant, and if it were an affair of 
romance ? 

" Oh, no," she wrote. " It marked a matinee 
t^l^phonique, — the telephone, you know," she 



Psychic Communication, 313 

added, a trifle impatiently. " You know, I as- 
sisted Professor Bell to introduce the telephone 
in London." 

I knew this only vaguely. She added some 
particulars, and I returned home to renew my 
search among her papers — which had been 
given to me for biographical use — only to be 
completely baffled in finding any data bearing 
on the year 1878. So the summer went on 
until one August day, when I was surprised 
by hearing her say to me, not audibly, but 
falling on the inner sense, calling me by name : 

" , there is another trunk of papers. Ask 

for another trunk." 

At this time I had, as I believed, all her 
manuscripts. Still, I followed the direction, 
and replied : — 

" Certainly there is another trunk of papers, 
but, supposing you did not want them, I sent 
it to Indianapolis. I will have it forwarded to 
you immediately*" 

In due time the trunk arrived, and in it was 
her diary for 1878. These diary entries cor- 
roborated the assertions made through Mrs. 
Piper's hand in every particular save one, and 



314 The Spiritual Significance. 

of this one I only obtained the corroboration 
two years later. It was this : — 

I had asked where she obtained the ring, — 
whether Professor Bell gave it to her ? 

"No," she wrote, " I bought it and had it 
engraved myself." 

The diary records made no allusion to the 
ring. I wrote to Professor Bell, who replied 
that he knew nothing about it, which negatively 
confirmed the statement of my friend. Thus 
the matter rested until I came to learn the 
address of Colonel William Reynolds, in New 
York, who had been closely associated with the 
Bell telephone matter in London and had accom- 
panied my friend and another lady when she 
went to Osborne House, Isle of Wight, to sing 
to the Queen through the telephone. Writing 
to Colonel Reynolds, I told him of the assertion 
(through Mrs. Piper) that she bought her ring 
and asked him if he knew ? Under date of 
"No. 11 Broadway, New York City, Oct. 31, 
1899," Colonel Reynolds wrote : — 

" . . .1 can assure you from my own knowledge 
the statements made purporting to come from Miss 
Field are absolutely correct. I know where she 



Psychic Communication. 315 

bought the ring and why that date was engraved 
upon it." 

Another instance that goes far to confirm 
the probability of telepathic communication 
from my friend in the Unseen to myself, irre- 
spective of the presence of any medium, was 
this : — 

Among her papers was a long letter from 
Edgar Allan Poe written to her father. I had 
decided to include this with her other autograph 
letters, all of which I gave to the Boston Public 
Library, where, by the courtesy of Mr. Herbert 
Putnam (then librarian) and the trustees, they 
constitute, with the manuscripts of her comedi- 
ettas and a photograph of her portrait by Ved- 
der, a " Kate Field Memorial Department." 
Just before I had finished collecting these to 
make the gift, — on an August day of 1897, I 
was suddenly aware that she said to me : — 

" I want you to give the Poe letter to Mr. 
Stedman." 

I did not at the time know of any reason for 
this choice of Mr. Edmund Clarence Stedman 
beyond the fact that he was one of her most 
valued friends. I sent the letter, however, and 



316 The Spiritual Significance, 

under date of August 20, 1897, Mr. Stedman 
wrote me, saying : — 

"... As for the Poe letter, I scarcely know what 
to do. Don't you know that it is rare and valuable ? 
But of course you do, and of course that is why you 
give it to me. Well, I have Poe's best daguerreotype 
and a famous Poe manuscript, and I need just this 
letter to go with them and to make my memorial 
complete. So I am incontinently resolved to keep it." 

Mr. Stedman's reply indicated the peculiar 
appropriateness of adding this letter to his Poe 
memorials, and goes far to establish a proba- 
bility that our mutual friend in the Unseen 
recognized this fitness. 

One very marked thing in the series of com- 
munications given by this friend through Mrs. 
Piper's hand was her own evident and constant 
anxiety to give tests of her individuality. This 
was facilitated greatly by the circumstances of 
the time. Dr. Hodgson gave every morning to 
a stance with Mrs. Piper, and she fell in the 
way of coming to him frequently. This enabled 
her to offer almost innumerable proofs that she 
— or some super-normal intelligence bearing her 
characteristics — saw and heard much that went 



Psychic Communication, 317 

on pertaining to my own life, — conversations 
in my room, my reading, and inner experiences 
that I had not recorded in any outward manner 
of writing or of conversation » 

It chanced that some months before her death 
she had been intensely interested in the estab- 
lishment of cable communication between the 
United States and Hawaii, and she had urged 
me, as a press writer, to endeavor to assist in 
" stirring up " the matter ; and, as a matter of 
verifiable record, I incorporated her earnest 
appeal into a letter to the " New Orleans Times- 
Democrat" sometime in the December or Jan- 
uary of 1895 or 1896. Sometime after her 
death she was writing to Dr. Hodgson through 
Mrs. Piper's hand, — no one else being present, 
— and evidently by way of giving him a striking 
test of her identity she wrote : — 

" Ask if she recalls the fact of my wishing her 

to stir up the cable question in the newspapers 
before I came here " (the " here " referring to the 
ethereal world). ^' I am sure she must recall this 
expression, — ' stir up.' " 

When Dr. Hodgson gave to me the communi- 
cation in which she assured him that I would 



318 The Spiritual Significance. 

recall the expression, "stir up," I replied by 
placing the original letter from her in his hands 
in which occurred this paragraph : — 

" If the people here do not get cable communica- 
tion with the United States, they will eat each other 
up. Do stir up the newspapers on this matter." 

An exceedingly characteristic expression of 
the friend to whom I allude, as all who knew 
her would agree, was the following, written 
(through Mrs. Piper's hand) to Dr. Hodgson, 
in reply to some remark of his : — 

"I tell you, my good friend, I am wide awake, 
and if there is any spirit in our world Avho really 
knows what is going on in yours, I do." 

Dr. Channing once said in a sermon : — 

" Let us not listen for a moment to a doctrine so 
irrational as that our present characters do not follow 
us into a future world. If we are to live again, let 
us settle it as a sure fact that we shall carry with us 
our present minds such as we now make them ; that 
we shall reap good or ill, according to their improve- 
ment or corruption, and that every act thus affects 
character." 



Psychic Communication, 319 

This insight of the intuitive nature of William 
Ellery Channing was continually verified in the 
numerous and varied experimental investiga- 
tions made by Dr. Hodgson ; and the assertion 
of Mr. Myers already recorded, that " death is 
not a cessation, but a liberation of energy," was 
constantly sustained. Apparently, the transition 
to the ethereal plane infinitely increases and 
quickens the vigor, joy, and enthusiasm of any 
nature. Especially does every fibre of the moral 
nature seem strengthened, and the obligations 
of benevolence and thoughtful aid assume a 
deeper reality. 

Regarding her life, the drama that absorbed 
her in this world was upon a wide stage, and 
this breadth of interests continually manifested 
itself from the new life. Many years before her 
death, in one of her books, she had said : — 

*'It seems to me natural, judging by my own 
feeling of what I should be impelled to do, that 
spirits should desire to communicate with their 
friends on earth." 

Apparently this desire continued, and a certain 
little vein of tenacity regarding her own work 



320 The Spiritual Significance, 

which characterized her in this world, persisted, 
as revealed in this sentence written to Dr. Hodg- 
son, in reference to some test of her own : — 

" For my sake, all of my tests I wish kept sepa- 
rately. This is a new field of work for me, and I 
am anxious to keep it as clear as possible and do as 
much as I can for you." 

On another occasion she assured Dr. Hodgson 
that she could impress me to do a certain thing 
which, for some reason or other, I actually did 
accomplish before knowing that any such asser- 
tion on her part had been made ; and later, in 
reference to it, she wrote to Dr. Hodgson : — 

"... I am not taking too much credit upon 
myself in saying she has carried out the expressed 
wish, as I told you previously. The test is mine, 
and I claim it." 

The passion for accuracy that distinguished 
her in this world was recalled by her reply to a 
remark of Dr. Hodgson's to the effect that he 
thought she was only guessing at a certain thing, 
when, in response, she wrote : — 

"You do not seem to understand me very well, 
do you % I was a great traveller, and while I knew 



Psychic Communication, 321 

perfectly well where my possessions were wheiD I 
was in the body, it is not to be wondered at that 
after this change I should be unable to recall every- 
thing all at once. I think of different things and 
different matters." 

Again, to Dr. Hodgson, in evident and very 
characteristic comprehension of his work in psy- 
chic investigation, she vrrote : — 

" I do not wish to be selfish and take up any 
one's time ; but I do like so much to come and 
speak with you, and you know I will always 
watch for any little test and come in and give 
it to you whenever the opportunity presents 
itself." 

"You are first rate at this," Dr. Hodgson 
replied. 

" I was not fishing — " 

" Nor was I flattering," he rejoined. 

" Yet," she continued, '^ I was only trying to 
make you understand that if I were able, I 
would give you these tests." 

" You are happy in your present life ? " he 
asked. 

"Indeed, I should think I ought to be; I 

never knew what life was, at all, until I came 
21 



322 The Spiritual Significance. 

here. It was like climbing up some rocky 
precipice during my whole mortal existence ; 
and when I extricated myself from the partially 
decayed house in which I dwelt, I realized such 
happiness as no one in the mortal life has ever 
known." 

" And it keeps on increasing ? " he questioned. 

"Yes, indeed, I assure you no one knows 
better than I do the delights of this world, and 
I am only too glad to have come so soon. Now 
tell — — all this for me. Give her my warmest 
love and most tender sympathy. Tell her that 
I have never known her as I do now. . , ." 

Dr. Hodgson found a little difficulty in de- 
ciphering the last line or two, and mentioning 
this to her she rejoined : — 

"Yes, it will do very well. I intended say- 
ing that I understood her love and her devo- 
tion to me as I never did when in the body." 

Again to myself soon after she wrote : — 

" I am happy, — more so than you can possibly 
know. Do you feel my presence when I stand be- 
side you and dictate little messages ? Often when 
you write out lines, I follow with my dictation and 
I feel sure that you hear me. Because, Dear, a few 



Psychic Communication* 323 

days ago you were writing out some of my own 
thoughts, as they were expressed on my sheets of 
paper, held before you. I whispered, ' Do not put 
those pages in, but look them over a little. ' I saw 
you rise from the table and go over to the little case 
of books, take out one, and refer to a volume 
which I had written years before, and then you 
went back and at my suggestion rewrote the pages. 
I also saw you look up steadily for a moment, and 
as though you were looking me straight in the eye. 

I really think and feel, dear , that you did hear 

me when I said, ' Do not write that, my Dear, but 
change it, or leave it out altogether/ This was in 
day, not night, so-called." 

As a matter of fact, this description corre- 
sponded precisely with an experience of mine one 
afternoon. In the course of some writing I 
had risen and gone over to a bookcase to take 
down a little book she had written on the Bell 
telephone, when I suddenly felt so conscious 
of her presence that I found myself contin- 
ually lookiiig up to see the form that I felt 
standing by the table; and I had — for what- 
ever cause it may have been — made several 
changes in the matter I was writing. Continu- 



324 The Spiritual Significance, 

ing her transcript of that special occasion, she 
also wrote : — 

" I saw all this very distinctly. It is through 
your own spirit that I see it. The astral objects are 
very vague, but the soul, thought, and the act are 
distinct." 

At another time, in allusion to some expression 
regarding flowers she wrote ; — 

" JSTo, not so fast. Do not do this for me, dear 

, because I have plenty of real ones here. I 

only said this as a test for you." 

The expression " I have plenty of real flowers 
here," reveals how much more significant the 
ethereal world seems to those who have passed 
on than it is possible for the present environment 
to be. 

The present conception of the ethereal world 
is not more imperfect than is that of the blind 
of the world in which we live. " I was talking, 
the other day, with a very intelligent blind man," 
said a college professor recently. " He was un- 
able to understand how a whole scene could be 
taken in at once. .He could distinguish B flat 
on a violin, he said, but suppose the whole sur- 



Psychic Communication. 325 

rounding country was full of violins, all playing 
different airs? That seemed to him a good 
analogy for the various things in a landscape. I 
soon realized that explanation on either side was 
hopeless." Yet if men as a rule were blind and 
only the exceptional person could see, then what- 
ever landscape he should describe to us, what- 
ever colors he might try to depict, would seem, 
to the majority, only vain imaginings, and would 
be largely ascribed to intentional deceit or to 
unintentional delusion. Now, as the eye and the 
ear convey to man what the blind and the deaf 
cannot share, so, as Channing well said, "A 
new sense, a new eye, might show the spiritual 
world encompassing us on every side. We need 
not doubt," he adds, " that the unseen visit our 
earth and bear a part in our achievements." 

The lessons of history seem to teach that the 
progress of all ages has been deeply influenced 
by incursions from the spirit world. To enter 
into the fuller comprehension of this speculative 
belief requires increasing familiarity with our 
own spiritual powers. It is based on the law 
of correspondence. The relation between the 
Seen and the Unseen is not only intimate but 



326 The Spiritual Significance, 

reciprocal, and the soul, whatever its degree, 
has its extension into such conditions of the 
ethereal world as correspond with its degree 
and with such spiritual forces as are allied to 
its own quality. Spiritual seers of all ages 
have perceived the truth of these relations. Al- 
though the popularization of the fact of the 
^' double " or the ethereal body as coexistent 
with, and under certain conditions separable 
from the physical body, is as modern as the 
Society for Psychical Research, yet we find 
Saint Augustine affirming the same truth and 
teaching that the spiritual and the physical 
bodies can be separated during the earthly life. 
The one supreme object of the sojourn on earth 
is to perfect the faculties of the spiritual body by 
means of which it will continue to progress. 

As for the establishment of spiritual telepathy 
between ourselves and those dearest to us in the 
ethereal world, it rests with us, and not with 
them. It rests with us to live the life of the 
spirit and not the life of the senses. " If a man 
desires to obey his calling as an angel," said 
Swedenborg, "when thought has shown him 
the fact of his double existence, he must seek 



Psychic Communication. 327 

to nourish the exquisite angelic nature that is 
within him. If not, his power passes into the 
service of the external senses. If he nourish 
the angelic nature, the soul rises above matter 
and -controls it." 

One of the most convincing of the tests that 
lend themselves to narration during this series of 
experiments with Mrs. Piper, was at a stance a 
few months after the death of Rev. Dr. Liver- 
more, the husband of the noble and distinguished 
Mrs. Mary A. Livermore. With the hope that 
some message might be given for the bereaved 
wife, I asked my unseen friend if she remem- 
bered Dr. Livermore in this world. 

" Yes, he is over here now, you know," she 
wrote instantly. 

" Do you ever see him ? " I continued. 

" Sometimes," she replied ; and then in re- 
sponse to my request that she should summon 
him, she wrote, " He is here now." 

Then I begged that he would give a message 
for Mrs. Livermore that I might convey to her, 
and, after some expressions of endearment, he 
added that he was " very much with Mrs. 
Norton." The name meant nothing to me, and 



328 The Spiritual Significance. 

it was with intense interest that I awaited Mrs. 
Livermore's reply to my letter telling her of this 
message which should decide the question as 
to whether the name of Mrs. Norton held for 
her any significance. Mrs. Livermore wrote as 
follows : — 

Melrose, Dec. 12, 1899. 

Deab : " Mrs. Norton" was one of our dearest 

and most treasared friends, who passed out of earthly 
life in Arlington, Mass., nearly a dozen years ago. 
Her husband still lives there, and I go to his eighty- 
fifth birthday party in a very short time. He is a 
remarkable man, physically, morally, mentally, spirit- 
ually. I cannot remember when I first met Mrs. 
Norton. I was three years old, she a trifle younger, 
and we were sent to the same " infant school " (they 
called it then), to be amused, and kept out of mis- 
chief, to sing and to play. I remember" no other 
child in that school but " Eliza Abrahams," she was 
then, — ' a pretty, delicate, timid, loving little thing, 
— and an affection was enkindled then that lasted 
through life. My husband knew her, through me, 
before our marriage, was always happy with her, 
and it would be like them to gravitate towards one 
another in the other realm. I have said in the 
family again and again, " Papa has met Eliza Norton 



Psychic Communication. 329 

before this time, I am sure. I shall ask when I 
have another sitting with a good medium." Her 
beautiful picture stands in my room, ever before me, 
as does that of her husband and mine. She was in- 
expressively lovely, spiritual, and believing about as 
you do in Spiritualism. You shall see her lovely 
face when you come here. 

Why, , this is a great test, greater than I can 

make you understand. I am exceedingly pleased that 
you had the interview with Mrs. Piper that has re- 
sulted so satisfactorily to me. I am very happy 
about it. ... 

Yours in love, 

Mary A. Livermore. 

Mrs. Livermore has herself had myriads of 
convincing proofs of intercourse with friends in 
the Unseen for a great many years, one of which 
she has thus related : — 

" I was once hurrying home from a lecture tour, 
and was on the train near Canandaigua, N. Y. I 
was pressing my face against the window of the car, 
when suddenly I heard a voice as plainly as though 
some one had spoken to me. 

" ' Jump back for your life ! ' 

"I leaped to my feet, and in one bound had 



330 The Spiritual Significance. 

reached the centre of the middle aisle. I had hardly- 
reached the spot when there was a terrific crash, and 
one side of the car was shattered. It seems the train 
had struck some empty cars that were backed on an 
open switch. I know now that some one in the land 
beyond had interested themselves in me and had 
saved my life." 

As every one vrho has made any investigation 
in psychic science knows, the tests of identity 
and personality which are the most startlingly 
convincing and conclusive are often the least 
possible to relate. They lie deep in individ- 
uality ; they are inherent in the very springs 
of character^ and in subtle and indescribable 
experiences, and do not lend themselves to nar- 
ration. One of these cases in point is the fol- 
lowing that she wrote, in comment upon some 
matter, when she characteristically said : — 

"I know very well what is right and what is 
wrong, and I am not one to keep quiet and not to 
speak my mind." 

It is perhaps the next step in social advance- 
ment to realize that life is a continuity unbroken 
by the change we call death. *' Let us not im- 



Psychic Communication. 331 

agine/* well said Victor Hugo, " that the useful- 
ness of the good is finished at death. Then rather 
does it begin. Death has expanded their powers. 
We should represent them to our minds as as- 
cended to a higher rank of existence and admitted 
to co-operate with far higher communities." 

The apostle tells us that '^the last enemy 
which shall be destroyed is death." The time 
has now come to destroy this enemy, and to see 
in the change merely a step onward in life, — one 
that does not separate, but rather that unites 
all those who live in the spirit rather than in the 
senses. The closest intimacies of this life are 
cold and distant compared with this companion- 
ship of spirit with spirit. The perfect joys of 
sympathetic intercourse are not experienced until 
man enters on the higher state of existence. To 
come into an understanding of the nature of the 
future life is to gain undreamed of strength and 
courage to press onward in our life here, — 
renewed courage and power as the scheme of 
existence is seen in its larger relations and its 
truer light. How are the dead raised up, and 
with what body do they come? It shall be 
given us to know. 



THE GATES OF NEW LIFE. 



The highest^ truest thought of heaven which man can have is 
of the full completion of those processes whose beginning he has 
witnessed here^ their completion into degrees of perfectness as 
yet inconceivable^ but still are in kind with what he is aware of 
now. — Phillips Brooks. 




THE GATES OF NEW LIFE. 

"It shall be 
A face like my face that receives thee, a Man like to me 
Thou shalt love and be loved by forever: a Hand like this 

hand 
Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee 1 See the 

Christ stand 1 " 

HERE is in Florence a picture of 
Botticelli's, — his last work, indeed, — 
which is privately owned and not known O 

to the general public, representing a woman 
kneeling before the closed portals of a temple 
praying to the unknown God within. The pic- 
ture symbolizes an attitude that has been largely 
that of the Christian Church. It has sought 
God, but it has taught that He could be known 
only by faith, — not by sight. "We cannot 
know ; we hope and wait," has been, to a great 
degree, the spiritual attitude. Now, to the 
teaching and to the recorded experience of 
Jesus is added, in accumulating and authori- 



336 The Spiritual Significance, 

tative data, that positive demonstration of the 
nature of life after deaths which must form the 
basis of a new theology. Humanity is no longer 
to plead before an unrealized and an unknown 
God, but is to know Him through the grow- 
ing comprehension of His methods. What lies 
beyond death ? To what conditions does this 
change introduce us ? Here is a daily, an hourly, 
experience, and one which every human being 
sooner or later must meet. It is not in the 
nature of the increasing intelligence of the scien- 
tific world that this change should remain a 
mystery. The Bible is full of its simple, natural 
revelations of the life in the Unseen. Theology 
has relegated these experiences to a closed chap- 
ter, and refused to recognize their persistency. 
But they have never ceased, and psychic research 
is now so collecting and sifting the evidence as 
to offer it with scientific accuracy. Faith is not 
the less when it is informed by knowledge. The 
objection that man is not intended by God to 
understand these spiritual truths is absurd. As 
well might it be said that man was not intended 
by God to understand anything of Astronomy, 
to find out how to weigh the planets, to discover 



The Gates of New Life. 337 

their composition, their movements, their interre- 
lations in space. As a spiritual being, man is 
potentially an inhabitant of the spiritual realms, 
here and now, and so far as he lives in the spirit 
he controls matter. With expanding conscious- 
ness he rises into constantly purer and loftier 
conditions with increasing potency over the 
lower. While on earth man collects facts and 
derives from them knowledge. Entering into 
the ethereal realm with this knowledge, he 
assimilates into qualities all that he has learned 
by experience, and thus enters on a higher round 
of progress. 

If the spiritual world that man already knows 
by faith and by intuition is also demonstrable, 
this demonstration must rest on the penetration 
of science into the Unseen universe and the 
intercourse with those who have passed beyond 
death. Apparently there is a realm of unseen 
energy interpenetrating our own which science 
knows as ether. Its nature and its possibilities 
are still in the stage of speculative considera- 
tion. Energy beyond computation is stored in 
the ether. A body moves in it without friction. 
Evidently it is the realm through which, or by 
22 



338 The Spiritual Significance, 

means of which, the currents of thought are 
conducted. Of its possibilities of action upon 
physical properties we gain a hint from Pro- 
fessor Dolbeare in this passage: — 

" Already a body of evidence which cannot safely 
be ignored shows that physical phenomena some- 
times take place when all the ordinary physical 
antecedents are absent, when bodies move without 
touch, or electric or magnetic agencies, — movements 
which are orderly and more or less subject to voli- 
tion. There are still other evidences that the sub- 
ject-matter of thought is directly transferable from 
one mind to another. 

"If these things be true they are of more import- 
ance to philosophy than the whole body of physical 
knowledge we now have and are of vast importance 
to humanity." 

There is a very striking correspondence be- 
tween the knowledge that science gives us of the 
ethereal realm (or the ether) and the knowledge 
that those in the Unseen give us from time to 
time of their environment. The evidence con- 
stantly points to the identity of the one with the 
other. Apparently the physical body lives in 
the air ; the ethereal body lives in the ether, 



The Gates of New Life, 339 

and as man is primarily an ethereal organism 
clothed upon, for a time, with a physical body, 
he is capable of entering into the ethereal world 
while here, and as a matter of fact he often ex- 
periences this. Hours of inspiration are simply 
times when one transcends his physical environ- 
ment and rises into the ethereal realm. That 
wonderful seer and savant, Nikola Tesla, has re- 
cently addressed himself to the problem of in- 
creasing human energy. In a wonderful paper 
contributed to the " Century Magazine " he pur- 
sues this question as one both of philosophy and 
dynamics. He sees humanity with its attendant 
impelling and resisting forces. How can its 
energy be increased ? By increasing the impul- 
sion or decreasing the resistance. He finds the 
answer to his problem in food, peace, and work. 
He finds the key to the food question in electricity 
which gives compounds of nitrogen making the 
soil productive. Peace will be the result of 
education and enlightenment, and of inventions 
that will make war " a mere contest of machines 
without men and without loss of life." Work, 
the motive power, increases with energy. Tesla 
finds that " the conductivity imparted to the 



340 The Spiritual Significance. 

air by electrical impulses increases with the 
degree of rarefaction/' and that at very moderate 
altitudes there is a medium surpassing copper 
wire in its facilities for a conducting path. He 
adds : — 

" From that moment when it was observed that, 
contrary to the established opinion, low and easily 
accessible strata of the atmosphere are capable of con- 
ducting electricity, the transmission of electrical 
energy without wires has become a rational task of 
the engineer, and one surpassing all others in import- 
ance. Its practical consummation would mean that 
energy would be available for the uses of man at any 
point of the globe, not in small amounts such as 
might be derived from the ambient medium by 
suitable machinery, but in quantities virtually 
unlimited, from waterfalls." 

To achieve the command of this electrical 
energy would be to transform the entire globe 
and to make every desert literally blossom as the 
rose. 

These extensions of the life of affairs into 
what is practically the spiritual world — for it 
has been the custom so to designate everything 



The Gates of New Life. 341 

beyond the boundaries of the known — immedi- 
ately illuminate for us the problems of being. 
That which in the past was the unknown and the 
" supernatural " is no longer the abode of '^ ghosts 
and genii," but is included in the familiar terri- 
tory of daily life because science has extended 
the horizon boundary. Each successive advance 
is found to be under law ; and when the law is 
grasped, the new region is annexed to the natural 
world, which thus constantly extends its boun- 
dary line. To contemplate the panorama, even 
between the age of Franklin and the age of 
Rbntgen and Marconi, is to gain a typical view. 
If this advance is the achievement of the nine- 
teenth century, what may not that of the 
twentieth and of succeeding centuries offer ? 

This extension of the mechanism and instru- 
mentalities of life into the unknown is the de- 
velopment of higher thought as well, and the 
closer union with the Divine seems inseparable 
from this larger development of the moral and 
intellectual faculties. It is the more intimate 
as well as the more intelligent union with God. 
Asking for the immediately practical results as 
affecting conduct, what do we find ? Admitting 



342 The Spiritual Significance. 

a scientific presumption of open intercourse be- 
tween the Seen and the Unseen ; admitting that 
the still more overwhelming mass of evidence 
from personal testimony during all ages con- 
stitutes a convincing element, — of what aid is 
the matter in our average daily life ? Every one 
has a right to ask this question ; and unless it 
can be satisfactorily answered, the claims of this 
philosophy cannot be pressed on the public at- 
tention. Will a larger conception of the nature 
of life, of the possibilities of development, of the 
forces beyond the horizon line of the domain of 
the senses, help each and all to be better men 
and women ? For by this arraignment the 
value of fuller knowledge must stand or fall. 

If one compares the pilgrimage of life to a 
journey, it is not difficult to realize that the more 
clearly one sees the end, the better prepared he 
is to meet the demands on the way and the 
more sustained he is amid incidental hardships 
and trials. With no clear idea of the end or 
aim of a journey the incidents along the way 
assume a disproportionate importance. The 
traveller is fatigued, or depressed, or anxious, 
when if he realized the present and the future 



The Gates of New Ufe. 343 

conditions more clearly, he would be sustained, 
encouraged, confident, or joyful. This analogy 
is but feeble, however, because in the journey of 
life man is constantly creating his own conditions 
with their future results ; whereas on a voyage, 
or a railway tour, he is but an enforced re- 
cipient of conditions that prevail. More than 
all, if man is, by his nature, an inhabitant of 
both the physical and the spiritual worlds here 
and now; if it rest with himself to overcome 
the lower conditions and live more and more 
in the higher where he will control events rather 
than be subject to them ; if he may live in such 
constant telepathic intercourse or spiritual com- 
munion with those in the Unseen as to receive 
constant suggestion, instruction, or illumination, 
and thus live more consciously in the light of 
God, — is not this possibility of the deepest 
practical importance in daily life? The con- 
current testimony of intuition, of science, and 
of the teachings of the gospels points to its 
truth. Its desirability will be evident in pro- 
portion as its higher purposes are unfolded 
and understood. Its significance lies in the 
spiritualization of humanity here and now. 



344 The Spiritual Significance. 

The very air we breathe takes the impress of 
our thought and contributes to the formation 
of all outward conditions. The more one grasps 
the idea of living this life of the spirit, — which 
is not synonymous with ceremonial religion, but 
is, instead, the living in perpetual energy and 
exhilaration of achievement, and in that infinite 
joyousness that comes from clear vision and 
good-will to all, — the more he experiences 
this power to control and to create conditions. 
"Now are we the sons of God," and by our 
own divine nature we are endowed with some 
measure of the infinite power which reveals it- 
self to us as we recognize it and realize it into 
daily achievement. 

This potency is the result of the mystic union 
of the soul with God. It is the experience that 
religion has recognized as conversion, and there 
need be no searching for a better name. The 
Reverend Charles Grandison Finney has de- 
scribed this supreme hour in his life in these 
graphic words : " In the busy street and in the 
light of day there came a vision of Christ that 
transfixed me and arrested my whole train of 
thought. I stood motionless: I yielded to the 



The Gates of New Life, 345 

summons, and the vision burst upon my soul 
in resplendent glory." Mr. Finney's biographer 
says that at this time a positive force like elec- 
tricity entered and penetrated his whole system. 
Certainly his beneficent and remarkable life is 
explained by this initiation. 

Another remarkable instance of this is related 
by Mrs. Meeker, the wife of Nathan Cook 
Meeker, of the editorial staff of ''The Tribune" 
in the days of Horace Greeley, the founder and 
President of the famous Union Colony of Colo- 
rado, and the founder of the town named 
Greeley, after the famous editor. Under Presi- 
dent Hayes Mr. Meeker was appointed Indian 
Agent to deal with the Utes, and he died the 
death of a hero in the great Ute massacre on 
the spot now marked by the town of Meeker. 
The Indians carried Mrs. Meeker and her 
daughter Josephine, a delicate girl of eighteen, 
captive into the heart of the Rocky Mountains, 
mounted on ponies and hurried to the South 
over high passes through frightful canons ten and 
twelve thousand feet high ; each night beholding 
the spectacle of a war dance, while the Indians 
sang their death songs, sharpened their knives, 



346 The Spiritual Significance, 

and told their captives that their time had come. 
After twenty-three days of unspeakable horror 
Mrs. Meeker and her daughter were rescued. 
But this rescue was initiated, the divine power 
that cared for them in their agonizing peril was 
invoked and the mystic communion made by Mrs. 
Meeker as a child of twelve, when she experi- 
enced " a deep conversion," and gave her whole 
life in complete consecration to God. During 
her captivity she was told to give medicine to 
an Indian child who was ill. It was a dilemma, 
for if she refused they would kill her ; and if she 
gave it and the child died, her life would be 
the forfeit. Nevertheless, she ministered to the 
need, and of it, in her own simple and touching 
words, she said : " Of course the silent prayer 
for the blessing was asked, and it was answered. 
I always think the Lord was very near me dur- 
ing my captivity. I was so strengthened to 
bear what was put upon me. . . . One night 
I had a dream in which the troubles of a long 
journey home were vividly portrayed. But a 
voice made known to me that I should finally 
reach Greeley. I felt the truth of this, and it 
was a comfort to me all the way of my intricate 



The Gates of New Life. 347 

journey. I had this dream, or vision, only a 
few nights before the massacre." 

Herein is a very striking testimony to the 
wonderful closeness of relations existing between 
the human and the Divine in the most practical 
way. ^^He shall give His angels charge con- 
cerning thee " is no mere phrase of rhetoric. 
The charge is always given, it is always felt 
as an invincible shield if the conditions are 
made through which alone it is possible, — the 
conditions of perfect consecration and union 
with God, who works for us by means of His 
messengers, by means of those of our own be- 
loved who have gone before into the Unseen. 
Our own spiritual selves take cognizance of them. 
Man learns to know that the soul, or his real 
self, — the directing conscious intelligence em- 
bodied in its psychic form and made visible and 
tangible on the physical plane by means of its 
outward and temporary physical body, — man 
learns to realize that this real self exists and 
is endowed with faculties that act independently 
of the senses. Science is beginning to recognize 
these faculties. The knowledge of the Rontgen 
ray reveals the scientific side of psychic sight, 



348 The Spiritual Significance. 

which, independently of the physical eye, sees 
through walls and barriers. The knowledge 
that gravitation in the ether is increased to a 
speed exceeding that of light reveals how the 
ethereal body may move so swiftly in its own 
realm. The demonstration of the telephonic 
qualities of sound explain the phenomena of 
clairaudience. Science actually demonstrates 
how the psychic body can act and perceive 
at any distance independently of the senses. 
Death, liberating the spiritual man, restores to 
him his power of sight, of hearing, of movement, 
over distances so great as to seem phenomenal 
viewed from the physical plane. A conscious 
realization of these powers enables one to use 
them to an increasing degree before the libera- 
tion of death ; for the physical body is not 
altogether a prison-house. It is an organism 
exquisitely adapted to any possibility of demand 
upon it, and adjusts itself to the spiritual direc- 
tion, adapts itself more and more as these de- 
mands grow more intelligent and positive. The 
poets have always discerned this truth without 
offering a hint of its processes. 



The Gates of New Life. 349 

" Man is his own star, and the soul that can 
Render an honest and a perfect man 
Commands all life, all influence, all fate." 

These lines express in essence the same truth 
that psychic investigation and science express 
through a revelation of the nature of man and 
an explanation of his powers. Even prophecy, 
which has been held as so mysterious, is simply 
spirit-perception. The future is simply the result 
of the present. It is the product of causes ; the 
soul may perceive it, and, in fact, does and must 
perceive it, to just the degree in which it has 
learned to realize experimentally its own powers. 
Sir William Crookes recently remarked that 
past, present, and future might be compared to 
the landscape through which one was travelling 
by cars. At the moment he sees only the one 
point that is opposite his own window ; but if 
he lean out and gain the larger view, he sees 
before and behind, and realizes that there is no 
past or future except for the imperceptible in- 
stant that a given point of view is seen as he 
passes. 

The more spiritual minds have always felt 
he necessity of reconciling science and religion. 



350 The Spiritual Significance. 

Rev. Dr. Horace Bushiiell, in " Nature and the 
Supernatural," said : — 

" From the first moment or birth-time of modern 
science, if we could fix the moment, it has been clear 
that Christianity" must ultimately come into a grand 
issue of life and death with it, or with the tendencies 
embodied in its progress. Not that Christianity has 
any conflict with the facts of science, or they with it. 
On the contrary, since both it and nature have their 
common root and harmony in God, Christianity is 
the natural foster-mother of science, and science the 
certain handmaid of Christianity. And both to- 
gether, when rightly conceived, must constitute one 
complete system of knowledge. But the difficulty 
is here : that we see things only in a partial manner, 
and that the two great modes of thought, or intellectual 
methods — that of Christianity in the supernatural 
department of God's plan, and that of science in the 
natural — are so different that a collision is inevitable 
and a struggle necessary to the final liquidation of the 
account between them ; or, what is the same, neces- 
sary to a proper settlement of the conditions of 
harmony." 

Dr. Bushnell ardently sought to find " a legiti- 
mate place for the supernatural in the system of 



The Gates of New Life, 351 

God and show it as a necessary part of the 
divine system itself." 

Reared in the more partial and imperfect con- 
ceptions of his day, his own mind perceived the 
grander and larger truth; and while he was 
unable to grasp and expound it, he never ceased 
in his effort to give this higher enlightenment. 
The world has now gone forward, and we realize 
that what was termed supernatural is merely the 
super-normal : that natural laws operate on dif- 
ferent planes, and that the law which permits 
the psychic sight to recognize objects through 
thousands of miles of space is just as natural a 
law of optics as is that which permits the phys- 
ical eye to recognize an object that is near. The 
law that governs wireless telegraphy is on the 
plane which a century, even a half-century ago, 
would have called the supernatural. How fine 
was that insight of Dr. Bushnell that de- 
clared man to be a supernatural being and that 
the supernatural did not imply a suspension of 
the laws of nature ! How nearly he grasped the 
deeper truth, and how great is the debt to such 
a man, who bridged the gulf between compara- 
tive ignorance and larger truth I If, like Curtius 



352 The Spiritual Significance. 

of old, he bridged the chasm by throwing himself 
into it, his resurrection has been certain and 
glorious. 

The practical advantage of a true understand- 
ing of man's spiritual nature lies in this clear 
comprehension that it gives to him of his rela- 
tions to the various planes — each dominated by 
its own laws — that form his successive environ- 
ments and his understanding that he is never 
restricted to any one of these planes save by the 
limitation of his degree of development. The 
greater his development, the greater his facility 
to act upon many planes. As a matter of actual 
fact, this has always been true in the history of 
the world. The planes upon wliich the thinker, 
the seer, the poet, and the prophet dwell are 
many ; those on which the ignorant or the vi- 
cious dwell are restricted to the lowest and the 
most dense plane of matter, but the day has now 
dawned when man shall grasp this truth in de- 
tail and with conscious intelligence and positive 
purpose. 

Again, a knowledge of the wonderful organ- 
ism of this interpenetration of the physical and 
psychical body, and the communion that exists 



The Gates of New Life, 353 

between those both in and out of the physical 
body, will offer the most determining moral aid. 
The old theological tenet of the Evil One has its 
prototype in spiritual truth. This Unseen world 
around us into which all pass at death is peopled 
by the good and the bad, — by the more and by 
the less developed. One argument against psy- 
chic communication has been that man thus 
opened the door to evil influences. The objec- 
tion is one of great truth and serious impor- 
tance. Man does open the door to evil spirits, 
if he becomes psychically trained and developed, 
unless he so order his moral life that there is no 
affinity with the evil, no room for the unworthy. 
Yet is not this objection true even on the social 
side of our life here ? It rests with one's self to 
choose his associates from the noble, the lofty, 
rather than from the base and the low. When 
the apostle enjoins us to pray without ceasing, 
he gives the most practical counsel possible to 
conceive. To pray does not necessarily imply 
the outward posture of reverence, which in its 
proper place does conduce to communion with 
the Divine ; but walking on the street, in the 
midst of business transactions, in the market- 

23 



354 The Spiritual Significance, 

place as in the sanctuary, may one lift up his 
thoughts to God and ask His divine aid and 
care and direction, and thus call about him 
those purer and loftier friends in the Unseen 
whose delight is " to do the will " of God ; to co- 
operate in the one supreme work of the redemp- 
tion of man, of his development into the happi- 
ness and the holiness of spiritual life. If chil- 
dren could be taught that yielding to faults and 
sins, as those of selfishness, of ill-temper; of 
greed that ignores the rights of others, and 
that, carried to excess, becomes dishonesty ; of 
recklessness of statement that, carried to ex- 
cess, becomes falsehood ; if parents and teachers 
would make plain to childhood and to youth 
that these faults which, if not checked, develop 
into sins, open the door to evil influences that 
absolutely enter into a certain possession and 
domination of their bodily organism, — what a 
moral revolution this universal teaching would 
create ! To sink into sin is to allow the phys- 
ical body at last to become a mere shell tenanted 
at will by the vicious, the corrupt, the degraded, 
and this it is to lose one's soul. The old phrase 
has an infinite depth of meaning. Indeed, a 



The Gates of New Life, 355 

closer study of what we call the old theology 
leads us not so much to discard it, as to read 
into it the true and deep meaning which it con- 
tinually symbolized. It is full of the most 
wonderful spiritual significance which the larger 
development of science and of thought enables 
man to interpret in higher and more directly 
applicable meanings. 

To regard the mere unknown as synonymous 
with the spiritual world is a vague and mislead- 
ing generalization. The immediate life after 
death is being revealed to us. The first inter- 
mediate state in the ethereal world is not far 
removed from the life here. It is a life of con- 
ditions, and so is this. It is a life lived under 
higher potencies of law, but those are beginning 
to be recognized and utilized in the present state 

Canon Wilberforce recently preached an im- 
pressive discourse from the two texts, — " Dives 
lifted up his eyes in torment/' and "God is 
love." These two texts, said Canon Wilberforce, 
might at first seem incompatible, but, on the 
contrary, they are mutually supporting. Dives 
lifted up his eyes in torment because God is love. 
Because when a man has lived the life of selfish- 



356 The Spiritual Significance. 

ness and of materiality, God's love gives him 
a great remedial school, a spiritual hospital, 
where great forces are at work to purify his 
soul. The preacher went on to assert that man 
is '^surrounded, enwrapped, ensphered " by God's 
love. He spoke scathingly of the unspeakable 
falsity of holding that God would punish any 
man eternally. *' Such a doctrine would make 
God a failure," he said, and added that such a 
horrible misinterpretation of the Scriptures was 
responsible for great wrong and wickedness. " A 
misdirected theology has taught the world how to 
swear," he said. But so long as sin lasts, so long 
must punishment last. It is the remedial power. 
The Canon spoke earnestly of the continuity of 
character. The event of death has no miraculous 
power to change. As a man leaves this world, 
so does he enter the next. But he comes then 
into a fuller awakening. He sees where he has 
erred ; he comes into the larger intuitive grasp 
of realities. The sermon was one of the utmost 
power and fervor and of the highest spirituality. 
Canon Wilberforce is preaching the gospel of 
Christ in its highest and noblest application to 
daily life. He sees life in its wholeness, death 



The Gates of New Life. 357 

as merely an event in it, and he teaches the 
truth that we are surrounded by spiritual forces, 
companioned by spiritual friends. 

The gates of new life are opening to all hu- 
manity. The vista reveals the path of more 
earnest endeavor, of a nobler and more signifi- 
cant quality of life, of a larger sympathy and 
love, and of joy heretofore undreamed of by man. 
It is not by dropping the present occupation or 
evading duty, but by seeing in this occupation 
its opportunity for radiating the atmosphere of 
earnest purpose and of generous good-will ; of 
realizing that if one stands at the loom, behind 
the counter, laying bricks, or operating a machine, 
he is yet in God's world ; he is an inhabitant 
of the spiritual realm ; he may attract to himself 
the highest companionship to which he is able 
to aspire ; he may realize that seeming drudgery 
is but the momentary scenery along the way, 
and that just in proportion as he creates for 
himself a higher spiritual life, the temporal and 
visible will manifest it. 

The discussion as to whether communication 
may exist between those in the Seen and in the 
Unseen has concerned itself too largely with but 



358 The Spiritual Significance. 

one detail of the philosophy. The real question 
is as to the true nature of man^ — his powers, his 
possibilities of development, and his evolutionary 
progress. It is a question also of realizing the 
truth which the Christian world professes to 
believe and establishing this truth in more po- 
tent and direct relations to daily living. Theol- 
ogy, in its manifold systems and dogmas, has 
interposed itself between man and God, yet 
through the ages it has constantly progressed 
toward more simple and diviner truth. Almost 
every century has had its great reformer in re- 
ligious teaching, and both by revolution and 
evolution the world has gone forward. Hu- 
manity is coming to realize that the need is to 
be "saved" to-day, not in some vague and far- 
off eternity, that noio is the accepted time, and 
that one may well make haste to love^ make 
haste to be kind, considerate, and generous. 
The divine life and man's relations to it, or 
rather man's place in it, the divine nature, and 
man's relations to it, are the most practical 
questions of the hour. They involve all other 
questions. They predetermine all other rela- 
tions. Without some degree of conviction on 



The Gates of New Life. 359 

these matters there is no real basis to life ; all 
is like shifting sand. The true nature of man's 
being, his true place in the universe, these are 
immediate matters of concern. All else can 
wait ; all our buying and selling, our trade and 
traffic, our pleasures and our penalties, our 
hopes and our denials. And it is just on this 
threshold that the world waits to-day. 

Can these questions be answered ? Is it 
possible that man may comprehend the true 
nature of his own being and his true relations 
to the Divine? 

Rev. Dr. Theodore L. Hunger, an eloquent 
and noble preacher, touched on this theme in 
a notable discourse preached in Boston recently, 
— a discourse that, like all preached by this elo- 
quent divine and noble leader, was one of great 
value. Still, regarding the desirability of man's 
gaining a truer conception of his present re- 
lations to the Unseen, Dr. Hunger seemed to 
be sceptical. His argument was that if men do 
not fully comprehend the earthly, how can they 
expect to have any comprehension of the heav- 
enly ? " It would be," he said, ^^ like trying to 
calculate an eclipse before one has mastered 



360 The Spiritual Significance. 

arithmetic." He argued that while we are still 
on earth we must confine our attention to the 
present environment ; that we must study and 
live by moral principles, of course, and culti- 
vate every possible privilege of religious study ; 
but that any speculative thought regarding the 
nature of the future life is idle. This, at least, 
seemed the fair inference from the discourse, 
which was in no wise lacking in that noble 
and helpful power that characterizes Dr. Hunger. 
Still, as no religious teacher, however great and 
good he may be, is necessarily infallible in all 
his views, it may not be amiss to examine these, 
and to ask where is the line to be drawn between 
the earthly and the heavenly ? Where do the 
interests of the one end and the other begin ? 
Is the youth forbidden to think of the nature of 
manhood, — of its larger relations, responsibilities, 
and privileges? On the contrary, does not his 
college life gain in strength of purpose, and does 
not his acquirement more closely relate itself to 
realities, if he holds some intelligent conception 
of the place and the power of manhood ? Again, 
does not all mortal life gain illumination from a 
conception of the immortal ? If at the end of a 



The Gates of New Life. 361 

prescribed period of years, we are to experience 
an entire change of being and circumstances, of 
which it is now impossible for us to form any 
conception, would not this certainly dwarf and 
discourage all our present efforts ? If an increas- 
ingly intelligent conception can be gained of the 
life to come, is it not of the most momentous 
importance to the life that now is ? 

The dawn of the twentieth century finds the 
world in a new relation to the divine laws that 
govern the universe, and in a closer receptivity 
to divine truth than was ever before experienced. 
The " supernatural " of the past is the natural 
of to-day ; the miracle of a preceding age is the 
simple occurrence of the next one, because the 
laws on which its action is based are understood. 
Mr. Stead has recently made a comparison that 
strikingly illustrates the conditions of that tele- 
pathic communication which takes place between 
individuals dwelling in this world and between 
those who are in the Unseen world with those 
here. Imagine, says Mr. Stead, a horde of bar- 
barians coming into possession of a modern 
city, with its manifold telegraph wires, its tele- 
phonic tubes and apparatus, all of whose uses 



362 The Spiritual Significance. 

and significance were entirely unknown to the 
invaders. The delicate and complicated appara- 
tus would be battered down, destroyed, regarded 
as worthless ; but if by chance some one of these 
barbarians should speak through a telephonic 
tube, and be heard by another at a distance, 
who stood at the receiver, that one significant use 
of the apparatus, that one success, would prove 
its possibilities and suggest its real use and worth. 
Mr. Stead offers this as an illustration of the 
present status of communicating with those in 
the Unseen, or by thought transference at 
this plane of being. The successful instances 
occur, one hardly knows how. A multitude of 
unsuccessful attempts and confused efforts are 
continually experienced. The analogy is sug- 
gestive but not wholly adequate, as the present 
stage of experimental research into psychic laws 
are directed with an intelligence which can 
hardly be compared to purely barbaric ignorance. 
Yet the analogy would hold almost true if 
applied to the conditions of a half-century ago, 
when the first manifestations of some unknown 
force flashed upon the world and puzzled all in- 
quirers. Baffled and ignorant as are the experi- 



The Gates of New Life, 363 

meiits of the present day, there is yet seen a very 
definite advance and certain ground gained dur- 
ing this period of time, that is the foundation 
for all future advancement. Man has only en- 
tered upon his conquest of the new realm, but 
he is standing intelligently on its threshold, and 
is prosecuting his search into its laws with ra- 
tional zeal and constantly increasing knowledge. 
Between the Seen and the Unseen forces 
science has now established three remarkable 
links : that of the Rontgen ray, by means of 
which man sees through solid substances, that 
of wireless telegraphy and of the telectroscope, 
— the great new invention of the day which was 
one of the signal attractions of the great exposi- 
tion in Paris in the summer of 1900. By means 
of the telectroscope, man distinctly sees what is 
passing hundreds of miles away. Combining 
the two powers of the long-distance telephone 
and the telectroscope, man finds that, even here 
and now, there is nothing hidden that shall not 
be revealed. These three great discoveries — for 
they are all insights into existing laws of nature, 
combined with the knowledge as to the manner 
in which these laws may be utilized, rather than 



364 The Spiritual Signijiccmce. 

inventions — these three great discoveries will, 
during the coming century, entirely revolutionize 
the conditions of life. They will create as great 
changes in the future as the steam engine, the 
telegraph and the ocean cable, and electricity as 
a motor, and as the means of illumination have 
created in the past. The degree of com_munica- 
tion is always the test of the degree of advance- 
ment in civilization. The long-distance telephone 
has been in use less than twenty years, and al- 
most within a decade has been the invention and 
development of the audiphone and the grapho- 
phone. The latest development of the telephone 
is now the instrument which records the message 
as it comes if no one is present to take it. This 
has been fully tested already, nor is its working 
any more marvellous to-day than was that of the 
telephone a quarter of a century ago. 

This resume indicates something of the con- 
quest of man over unseen forces of nature. The 
degree of enlightenment which the advanced 
nations of the world have now reached calls for 
this swift, this instantaneous means of commu- 
nication in the twofold degree of hearing and 
sight which the telectroscope offers. What 



The Gates of New Life. 365 

would not have been the gain to England during 
her war in Africa, if the telectroscope were a 
sufficiently accomplished fact to enable the 
government instantly to see and hear what was 
taking place there. How this would have facili- 
tated every action ! How quickly would it have 
changed and controlled the tide of events ! 

Is it not, then, evident that humanity is ab- 
solutely advancing into the real, spiritual world ; 
that man is acquiring the control and the in- 
telligent direction of those hitherto unknown 
forces which have been regarded as mysterious, 
which have been called supernatural, which 
have been relegated as entirely belonging to an 
unseen universe, only to be explored by man 
after death had released him from the physical 
world. Truly ^^ The end of the nineteenth cen- 
tury leaves man face to face with God. . . . The 
spiritual universe is fast giving up its secrets 
hidden to all, save a few, since the world 
began." The same conditions which, heretofore, 
man has entered upon only after the change 
called death, are becoming our conditions now 
and here. Wireless telegraphy and the instant 
revelations of the telectroscope practically make 



366 The Spiritual Significance. 

possible the conditions of clairaudience and 
clairvoyance. The powers heretofore regarded 
with incredulity, or with awe; powers whose 
existence were either denied, or, if believed in, 
were regarded as almost supernatural, — are now 
about to be rendered scientifically practicable, 
and well within fche next quarter of a century 
they will be among the practical, daily ex- 
periences of life, as are now the telegraph, the 
ocean cable, and the telephone. The end of the 
nineteenth century leaves man face to face with 
God in the sense of entering, as he never has 
before, into the conception and the grasp of the 
divine laws and of the unseen forces of the 
universe. 

Sir William Crookes stated in a scientific ad- 
dress recently that " It has been computed that 
in a single foot of the ether which fills all space 
there are locked up ten thousand foot-tons of 
energy which has not yet been brought to 
notice." Now here is a vast storehouse of in- 
finite force ; it is at the service of him who shall 
learn how to use it. At present its resources 
are as unknown as were those of electricity 
when Franklin first struck a spark of electricity 



The Gates of Neio Life. 367 

from the key when he sent up his kite. There 
is in the ocean a boundless store of electricity. 
While our ocean steamers are propelled by the 
cargoes of coal they lay in, which at a fearful 
cost of human energy is fed day and night to 
the remorseless engine, the very water over 
which the ship is sailing offers her freely an in- 
finitely greater force of motive power, did she 
only know how to harness it to her use. That 
this will be done is only a question of time. 

All the phenomena of electricity and chemistry 
are subordinated to certain conditions. Man, 
made in the divine image, can create conditions. 
Thought is a still more potent force than elec- 
tricity, and can control and use electricity just as 
soon as it discovers the way. Finding the way, it 
can create the means. 

The recent advance in the price of coal caused 
consternation to English consumers. In a mul- 
titude of ways it affected both domestic and 
foreign industries. There has also been a cry of 
alarm raised by scientists during several years 
past because they could foresee the exhaustion 
of the coal stored in the earth. What then ? 
Science meets this truth with the affirmation 



368 The Spiritual Significance. 

that in a single foot of the ether ten thousand 
foot-tons of energy, hitherto unnoticed, are 
locked up. Into the blessedness of the old 
phrase, the " Kingdom of God," new and wider 
meanings are being read. It has come to stand 
to us, not merely, not perhaps even mostly, for 
the specific work of the church and organized 
religion ; it is rather the evolutionary develop- 
ment of this sacred and vital centre, extending 
its power and its influence out into all forms and 
phases of life. " The Kingdom of God " must 
mean better social and economic conditions, 
larger and better educational facilities, a purer 
and more significant literature, enlarging scien- 
tific research, generous and gracious personal 
intercourse, a capacity for a sincerity and truth 
in friendship, the ability to be glad in the glad- 
ness and to rejoice in the success of others ; it 
must, indeed, mean everything that is included 
in the law of love. 

"The knowledge of God lies behind everything, 
behind all knowledge, all skill, all life. That is the 
sum of the whole matter. The knowledge of God ! 
And then there comes the great truth, which all re- 
ligions have dimly felt, but which Christianity has 



The Gates of New Life. 369 

made the very watchword of its life, the truth that 
it is only by the soul that God is really known ; only 
by the experiences of the soul, only by penitence for 
sin, only by patient struggle after holiness, only by 
trust, by hope, by love, does God make himself known 
to man." 

The knowledge so greatly portrayed in this 
passage from Bishop Phillips Brooks — this 
sublimest and most significant achievement of 
life — is, by a paradox, the one most freely 
open to every human being, — " the knowledge 
of God." What is that knowledge ? Certainly 
it is not the mere acquired information of intel- 
lectual research and study ; it is not merely 
familiarity with theological law, or with the 
entire data of ethics, or even with the Bible 
itself. It may include all these and be the better 
for the inclusion. It may lack all these and still 
possess the one all-essential element, — the one 
element as accessible as it is indispensable, — 
that of the experimental knowledge of God by 
living the life of His teachings. " He that doeth 
the will, — He shall know of the doctrine." Re- 
ligion is a life and not a theory, and the more 
24 



370 The Spiritual Significance, 

deeply and persistently one lives the life of the 
spirit, the more truly does he know God. 

Science establishes her conviction on demon- 
strable evidence ; and while it is true in the 
highest sense that spiritual truths are spiritually 
discerned, and that man may possess a spiritual 
nature that does not record itself on the scales of 
avoirdupois, yet there is a class of evidence as 
demonstrable as a mathematical problem, and 
as inevitable in its revelations as the working 
of moral law. This class of evidence may be 
divided into two varieties, — the one as experi- 
mental with psychics (mediums) ; the other as 
experimental in one's own experience in the rela- 
tion between his inner and his outer life ; be- 
tween his thoughts and prayers, on the one 
hand, and outer events and circumstances, on the 
other. When, over a long period of years, this 
relation establishes itself with an unerring and 
invariable correspondence ; when the mental 
questions asked of a friend in the Unseen are 
invariable answered ; w^hen it is found that over 
months and years this conversation in thought 
produces precisely the same results as a conver- 
sation in words; when, indeed, these results in- 



The Gates of New Life. 371 

finitely transcend those of conversation viva voce, 
— then, it must be admitted, there is a chain of 
presumptive evidence far stronger than any 
derived from mere momentary phenomena. 

"The time has come," said Bishop Potter 
recently, "when the Church and its teachings 
must vindicate themselves by something more 
than speech hardened into dogmatic terms. In 
our age, and in a world that reads and compares 
and inquires because it thinks^ authority must 
vindicate itself by its appeal to those judges of 
all truth which are the image of the Divine 
in man, — the spiritual intuition, the conscience, 
and the reason." 

" The world inquires because it thinks" In 
that assertion Bishop Potter touches the keynote 
of the age. And the inquiry is to be answered. 
It is to be answered by the scientific demonstra- 
tion of immortality and of the nature of the future 
life. When one has established beyond doubt 
the identity of a friend in the Unseen, he is just 
as much entitled to believe that which the friend 
asserts to be true, as he would were his friend 
in this world. If a man describes to us his 
home and his general course of life as lived in 



372 The Spiritual Significance. 

a foreign city, we do not question his accuracy 
of statement. The same principle is coming 
to be recognized as applicable to an attitude 
toward communications from those in the life 
beyond. 

The knowledge of God includes all this range 
of spiritual inquiry. Its initial condition is the 
pure heart, the noble and generous purpose, the 
passionate eagerness for the good ; this spiritual 
vitality that vivifies the entire world of motive 
and aim and aspiration, and places one in touch 
with those finer and more intense forces that 
govern the experiences on the higher plane. It 
is the knowledge which makes the present hour 
rich, and that illuminates it with the light that 
comes from experimental realization of the in- 
fluence and companionships of the Unseen 
World. 

That there exist every grade of invisible in- 
telligences in the vast range between humanity 
and divinity is a truth which scientific research 
is beginning to demonstrate. We live and move 
and have our being in an atmosphere of vital 
force. The very air is alive. The very air is 
permeated with intelligence with which we can 



The Gates of New Life, 373 

come into conscious relation. These forces of 
the air are the servants of all who learn how to 
control them. Emerson said : " When a god 
wishes to ride, every chip and stone will bud and 
shoot out winged feet to carry him." In this 
sentence the great seer — whose transcendant 
power of divination and insight we are only be- 
ginning adequately to appreciate — condensed a 
truth that might be expanded into a volume with 
philosophic or scientific explanation. Spiritual 
power is the god within, and when this power 
wills to accomplish any specific result, all the 
forces of earth and air are its servants and its 
ministers. 

Prof. William James of Harvard University, 
who is justly claimed in two hemispheres to be 
the greatest living psychologist, has given in his 
little book called " Human Immortality " a con- 
tribution to the literature of progress which is 
of inestimable value. For as a matter of intelli- 
gent conviction, it is well to understand the 
arguments held by psycho-physiologists who 
have denied the possibility of the survival of the 
conscious man after death. Professor James 
meets the assertion of this faction that 



374 The Spiritual Significance, 

'' Thought is a function of the brain " with its 
logical sequence that, if this be true, thought 
must cease when the brain dies, and says : — 

"When the physiologist who thinks that his 
science cuts off all hope of immortality pronounces 
the phrase, * Thought is a function of the brain,' he 
thinks of the matter just as he thinks when he says : 
* Steam is a function of the tea-kettle,' ^ Light is a 
function of the electric circuit/ ' Power is the func- 
tion of the moving waterfall.' In these latter cases 
the several material objects have the function of in- 
wardly creating or engendering their effects, and their 
function must be called productive function. Just so, 
he thinks, it must be with the brain. 

" But in the world of physical nature, productive 
function of this sort is not the only kind of function 
with which we are familiar. We have also releasing 
or permissive function; and we have transmissive 
function. . . . The keys of an organ have only a 
transmissive function. They open successively the 
various pipes and let the wind in the air-chest escape 
in various ways. The voices of the various pipes are 
constituted by the columns of air trembling as they 
emerge. But the air is not engendered in the organ. 



The Gates of New Life. 375 

, . . My thesis now is this : that when we tliink 
of the law that thought is a function of the brain, we 
are not required to think of productive function only ; 
we are entitled also to consider permissive or transmis- 
sive function. And this the ordinary psycho-physi- 
ologist leaves out of his account." 

Here is a strictly scientific answer to a strictly 
scientific statement. That the brain is con- 
structed to transmit thought rather than to en- 
gender it, is a theory which all physical research 
and knowledge equally well attest, while the pre- 
sumption of intuitive perception of spiritual 
truths, even if the positive evidence of psychical 
research is excluded, is in its favor. It is a 
most important scientific affirmation. 

The literature of biography holds no more 
remarkable testimony to the daily, practical suc- 
cess of spiritual power than is illustrated in the 
life and work of Mr. Gladstone. It is not only 
that the divine power is " a very present aid in 
time of trouble ; " this very present aid is 
equally essential in time of prosperity. In 
fact, it is possible to come so into accord and 
harmonious receptivity wdth this divine strength 
that joy and successful achievement will be 



376 The Spiritual Significance. 

the daily experience, rather than trouble and 
sorrow. To be receptive to this tide of ex- 
hilaration is not a mere matter of passive de- 
sire. It implies the highest intellectual and 
spiritual activity; and it is just here that the 
great lesson is found in the life of Mr. Glad- 
stone. 

The present day is a reaction from formalism. 
In the protest against a mere ceremonial reli- 
gion there is a possible danger of losing the spir- 
itual aid which is often given by means of these 
very ceremonies and rituals when entered into 
sincerely. Certain ceremonial observances are 
the sign and seal of all the finer social life. 
One does not enter the home of his most familiar 
friend without due observance of respectful 
ceremony. The more intimate the friend, the 
more scrupulously delicate, indeed, will one be, 
for, as Gail Hamilton well said, ^' While one 
must draw on his own love to neutralize the 
faults of his friend, it is suicidal to draw on 
his friend's love to neutralize his own." Are 
not social relations a type of the divine rela- 
tions? Friendship demands delicate observ- 
ances. It requires leisurely communion for its 



The Gates of New Life. ^77 

perfection. How far more does the intercourse 
of the soul with the Divine Power demand cere- 
monial observances which are not artificial or 
external, but which are the appointed means 
by which the soul detaches itself from the phys- 
ical world, and lifts itself to the spiritual world ! 
The Unseen manifests itself through the Seen. 
Intelligence, aspiration, knowledge, power, love, 
— all that makes up the unseen principle 
within; all the infinite creative force that con- 
stitutes the soul, the immortal being, manifests 
itself through various forms of visible organism. 
It is this divine energy which communicates 
itself through religious observances, — as spe- 
cial periods of devotion and contemplative as- 
piration and concentration on divine energy. 
Not that aspiration toward the Divine is, by any 
means, limited to formal periods; it may and 
it should form the perpetual undercurrent of 
conscious life. Never is there an hour, a mo- 
ment, even, when the heart may not lift itself 
to God ; may not receive of His infinite po- 
tency of energy. Yet to have certain regular 
hours of devotion is the most marvellous in- 
vieroration. 



378 The Spiritual Significance, 

It was in this unfailing devotion to the 
sources of spiritual refreshment that the life 
of Mr. Gladstone was supremely great. For over 
sixty years he and Mrs. Gladstone never missed 
the morning devotions of their parish church at 
Hawarden when they were in residence there. 
What a remarkable fact in the life of a man who 
is universally acknowledged to have been the 
greatest statesman of this century ; a man over- 
whelmed with public cares and the most signifi- 
cant interests ; a man who lived the complicated 
life of a great political leader, a shaper of na- 
tional destiny, a scholar, a writer, a man of wide 
and charming social life ; yet in all this mul- 
titudinous activity he set apart each day certain 
special periods for his religious devotion, which 
were no more crowded out by the storm and 
stress of parliamentary life than were the ap- 
pointed hours for his speeches in the House 
crowded out or changed by other demands. 
The secret of his ninety years of lofty and pur- 
poseful life is found in this fact. He lived the 
life of the spirit, using the body as the instru- 
ment of action. He perpetually related his 
nature to the divine nature ; held himself recep- 



The Gates of New Life. 379 

tive to the flow of the supreme energy, and 
thus was enabled to live a more than fourfold 
life. The voluntary life exhausts this supply of 
ethereal energy; the involuntary life receives 
and renews it. The sole object of existence on 
earth is to achieve spiritual freedom. To this 
end all that affects the body as an instrument 
must be subordinate ; the choice of food, air, 
exercise, and, above all, and including all, the 
potency of thought and purpose. To hold the 
ruling purpose of life in perpetual receptivity to 
this fl^ow of ethereal energy is to achieve the 
highest conditions for the true success of life ; 
those which lie in the service of humanity and 
the elevation of the race. 

For if man prays for perfection, he must give 
himself for the good of others. It is the law 
and the prophets. The field is the world. 
Take, for instance, the complicated and many- 
keyed life open to any one in a large city. There 
is no social life without its social problems. The 
ordinary "society" life, par excellence, is a tre- 
mendous and most potent mechanism for good 
or evil. The unforeseen meetings and groupings 
are freighted with significance. There can be 



380 The Spiritual Significance, 

no calls, no receptions, no dinners, no club meet- 
ings, no human intercourse of any nature, from 
the most informal to the most ceremonial, that 
is not just as potent in its privileges and its 
opportunities for help or hindrance as are our 
specific religious and devotional gatherings. 
There is no personal touch without its personal 
power. There is no personal mingling, no con- 
ceivable possibility of any personal meeting, 
however unforeseen and informal, without this 
intercommunication of influence. 

In George Eliot's wonderful drama of human 
life, as scene after scene unfolds in her novel 
entitled '^ Middlemarch," this potency of one life 
upon another in the simple mingling and meet- 
ing of the various people who make up the town 
is revealed in a most graphic and impressive way. 
The presence of one noble nature amid all these 
varying individualities is the saving power. If 
Dorothea had not spoken to Dr. Lydgate as she 
did, when she asked him to tell her all the 
curiously complicated story whose events had 
entangled him ; if Dorothea had not gone to 
Rosamond on that mornhig and revealed to her 
a higher and purer plane of life, and made 



The Gates of Neiv Life. 381 

clear to her the underlying truth, — if these 
things had not been, the general town life in 
Middlemarch would have been less worthy than 
it was, and the individual with whose life the 
story has to do would have failed in a far 
greater degree to achieve anything of value in 
life. 

The soul has divine powers; and as these 
powers develop and assert their innate potency, 
man is less and less at the mercy of chance com- 
binations of events. He learns to rule wisely 
the course of his onward progress. He lives on 
into a more real world. Within one night or 
one morning the individual who has found the 
clue to the labyrinth of his own inner forces 
may dissolve and dispel all his immediate con- 
ditions, and create wholly new combinations. 
'^ There is a power in to-day to recreate the 
beautiful yesterday," or to create one far more 
beautiful. 

Holding always the mental image of all ma- 
terial conditions as a means to an end, one may 
create the successful conditions. Whatever he 
desires unselfishly, for the good of his work, 
to aid in the unfoldment of his powers and the 



382 The Spiritual Significance. 

fulfilment of their design, that shall he draw to 
himself. Through this divine potency shall there 
open for him a life so exalted in its opportunities, 
so potent in its privileges, as to create for him, 
practically, a new heaven and a new earth. 
Will and thought are living forces that germi- 
nate and grow into achievement. Emerson dis- 
cerned the truth that " the soul of man is not 
an organ, but animates and exercises all the 
organs ; is not a function, like the power of 
memory, of calculation, of comparison, but uses 
these as hands and feet ; is not a faculty, but a 
light; is not the intellect or the will, but the 
master of the intellect and the will ; is the back- 
ground of our being in which they lie. An 
immensity not possessed, and that cannot be 
possessed." 

To Emerson the robe in which the soul is 
clothed is the web of events ; and while he did 
not distinctly formulate much that has come to 
be latter-day thought and absolute knowledge 
regarding the relations of man to the phenomenal 
universe, the interior perception of deep truth 
was constantly with him and constantly finding 
expression. He saw that the spiritual man, the 



The Gates of New Life. 383 

true self, was clothed in successive bodies, as 
a series of garments, each one related to a 
certain definite plane of life, as the physical 
body is related to the terrestrial world, and that 
these garments were of a nature to enable the 
spiritual man to come into relations with the 
plane of life to which each corresponded, thus 
gaining the knowledge of that region and gather- 
ing from it experience. Having exhausted these 
resources, it passes on to a higher condition. 
Thus the soul acquires its experiences and de- 
velops its faculties into powers. 

All the faculties that make up the conscious 
man, in the ordinary sense, can be so identified 
with the highest power of the soul as to enable 
one to dwell constantly on this immortal plane, 
where there is significance, beauty, joy, and ex- 
altation unknown to the lower states. To at- 
tain this knowledge of his own nature is man's 
highest privilege. 

These scientific discoveries regarding the 
ether show that this more subtle and rarefied 
air holds within it potencies of whose nature 
we are only beginning to comprehend. It is 
the storage of a tremendous energy ; it is mag- 



384 The Spiritual Significance, 

netic with intelligence ; it has the power of re- 
cording and holding impressions ; it has the 
properties through which and bj means of which 
these can be communicated and distributed. 
This etheric atmosphere seems undoubtedly to 
correspond to the needs of an etheric world, 
or a world whose inhabitants are in the next 
state of being above our own; and this plane 
is apparently the normal one ; the life whose 
significance and reality are far greater than in 
the conditions here. 

Evidently a definite change leads from the 
ethereal to the spiritual realm, and from the 
spiritual to the celestial, as the change of death 
leads from the physical to the ethereal, or the 
next immediate state of man. The great sorrow 
that has surrounded death ; the consciousness 
of loss with which it has been invested, — will all 
be changed with the general diffusion of knowl- 
edge as to its real character. It is simply the 
withdrawal of the etheric double from the denser 
body. The etheric double is a facsimile of the 
physical body, and is the vehicle, so to speak, 
or the sheath of the soul, with all its organs and 
powers, just as the physical body has been. 



The Gates of New Life. 385 

This etheric double withdraws each night during 
sleep. The phenomenon of sleep is very similar 
to that of death, save that the connection is re- 
tained between the etheric and the physical 
form. When this connection is severed, then 
it becomes death, and it is then that man enters 
on his more significant life. Kant notes that 
while the death of the body may be the end of 
the sensational use of the brain, it is " only the be- 
ginning of the intellectual use. The body would 
thus be, not the cause of our thinking, but 
merely a condition restrictive thereof, and al- 
though essential to a sensuous and animal con- 
sciousness, it may be regarded as an impeder 
of our pure spiritual life," he adds. 

To hold the clear conception that the real self 
is only slightly and temporarily identified with 
the physical body is to gain the basis of more 
intelligent and more worthy living. It shows 
the true relations between man and God, and 
man's true place in the cosmos as an inhabitant 
of the spiritual universe. Then does he assure 
his right to the sovereignty of his own nature ; 
then does he realize that all present intellectual 
and spiritual activities are but rudimentary hints 
25 



386 The Spiritual Significance. 

of their later development. Into that life of spir- 
itual significance we may enter now and here 
to the full degree in which we recognize it, and 
to achieve this plane is to enter within the Gates 
of New Life. 



INDEX. 



Abbott, Rev. Dr. Lymau, 33, 
34. 

Abrahams, Eliza. See Norton. 

Africa, 163. 

Alaslva, 163. 

Alcott, Amos Bronson, 15. 

Algerian, 163. 

America, 2.5, 79, 183. 

Aristotle, 176. 

Arlberg, the, 163. 

Arlington (Mass.), 328. 

Asia, 163. 

August, 315. 

Austria, 16, 25. 

Avignon, 44. 

B. 

Balzac, Houore de, 70, 188. 

Behmen, Jacob, 12. 

Bell, Dr. Alexander Graham, 

313; telephone of, 314. 
Berlier, Jean, 163. 
Besant, Annie, 19 ; theories 

regarding destiny of, 102 ; 

235. 
Binet, Satane (pseud, of Fran- 

cisque Sarcey), 25. 
Bonheur, Rosa, 16, 307. 
Boston, 150. 



Botticelli, Alessandro, 335. 

Brener, 25. 

Briggs, Rev. Dr. Charles, 295. 

British Channel, the, 163. 

Brooklyn, 195. 

Brooks, Rt. Rev. Dr. Phillips, 
15, 16, 22, 34, 58, 62 ; zeal 
for call to life, 78; 87, 172 ; 
clue to life of, 254; views 
of religion of, 270; convic- 
tions regarding God, 369. 

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 
lines from, 13, 86 ; 143, 287, 
289. 

, Oscar, Professor, 246. 

, Robert, 15. 290, 314. 

, the Brownings, 16. 

Buddha, 239. 

Bushnell, Rev. Dr. Horace, 34, 
200 ; compares Christianity 
and Science, 350; 351. 

Butler, Mrs. (biographer of 
Katheriue of Siena), 41. 



Cahagnet, 240. 
Caird, Principal, 54, 
Calais, 164. 
California, 273. 
Calvin, John. 34. 
Cambritlge, University of, 246. 



388 



Index. 



Campbell, Professor, 168, 169. 

Cauandaigua, 329. 

Carlyle, Thomas, 130. 

Cathedral, the, of Siena, 37. 

Catholic Church, the, 34, 176. 

Chanuing, Rev. Dr. William 
Ellery, 34 ; poem ou, by 
Lowell, 308 ; views on death, 
318, 319; 325. 

Charbonnel, Victor, 53. 

Chicago, 23. 

Christ, the ideal, 30; follow- 
ing of, 31 ; fundamental 
idea of, 54 ; 55 ; our life in, 
113; 139; 185; the risen, 
219 ; 309. 

Christian, the, 104 ; church of, 
185, 253; Christian, the, 
259; faith of, 301. 

Christianity, 199. 

Church, the Christian, 299. 

Colorado, 345. 

Columbia, College of, 274. 

Columbus, Christopher, 79, 
170, 239. 

Comte, Auguste, 249. 

Conniugton, the ghost, 246. 

Contrada d'Oca, 37, 43. 

Copernicus, 239. 

Cosmic Consciousness, 188, 
189. 

Crookes, Sir William, 24 ; 
postulates unknown regions, 
80; 175; 181; 264; 274; 
views of past, present, and 
future, 349 ; estimates 
energy in the ether, 369. 

D. 

Dante, 250. 

Darwin, Dr. Charles, 35. 
]^avy, Sir Humphry, 205. 
December, 317. 



Delsarte, Fran9ois Alexandre, 
145. 

Desertis, Dr. V. C, 264. 

Divine Communion, the, 125. 

Divine energy, the, 95, 119. 

Divine life, the, 105. 

Divine, the, man's relation to, 
48. 

Divine Power, the, 272, 297. 

Divine Progress, 296. 

Divine Spirit, the, 260. 

Divine, the soul's relation to, 
104. 

Divine Universe, the, 200. 

Doepler, 169. 

Dolbcar, Professor Amos Em- 
erson, views of the ether, 
206, 208, 210, 211 ; evidence 
of psychic phenomena, 338. 

Domenican, order of, 43. 

Domenico, Saint, Church of, 
37, 43. 

Donald, Rev. Dr. E. Winches- 
ter, 147, 148, 

Dorothea (character in " Mid- 
dlemarch"), 380. 

Dover, 164. 

Drummond, Dr. Henry, 174, 
231, 232, 233, 236, 26^2, 285. 

E. 

Edison, Thomas A., 78, 149. 

Eliot, Dr. Charles, president 
of Harvard, 15. 

, George (pseud, of Marian 

Evans Cross), 62, 64, 288, 
380. 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 15, 
22, 33, 45, 63, 64, 86, 105, 
108, 111, 119, 123, 124, 152, 
157, 170, 188, 193, 230, 382. 

England, 164, 246. 

Epiiesians, the, 89. 



Index, 



389 



Episcopal, the church, 279. 
Eternity, 27. 
Europe, 264. 

F. 

Faculte de Medecine, 240. 

Faith, 253. 

Fallows, Rt. Rev. Samuel, 23. 

Farrar, Dean, 250. 

Fichte, Johaun Gottlieb, 262. 

Field, Cyrus, 79. 

Field, Kate, 15, 314. 

Finney, Rev. Dr. Charles 

Grandison, 344, 345. 
Fiske, Dr. John, 207. 
Florence, 36, 37, 44, 62, 64, 

335. 
France, 163, 164, 241, 307. 
Franklin, Benjamin, 239, 341, 

366. 
French, the, 45, 240. 
Fuller, Margaret, Countess 

d'Ossoli, 15. 

G. 

Galileo, 2.39. 

Galvani, Luigi, 239. 

Garrison, William Lloyd, 15, 
78. 

Gates, Dr. Elmer, 140, 180. 

Gibier, Dr. Paul, 266. 

Gladstone, Catherine, 378. 

Gladstone, William Ewart, 15, 
16; convictions of, regard- 
ing psychic research, 175; 
characterization of work of 
psychic research of, 274 ; 
375, 376 ; Christian life of, 
378. 

Greeley, Horace, 175. 

Greeley, town in (Colorado), 
345/346. 

Gregory XI., 44. 



H. 

Hades, 27. 

Hale, Edward Everett, 283. 

Hamilton, Gail (pseud, of Mary 
Abigail Dodge), 376. 

Hamilton, Mt., 169. 

Plarris, Dr. William T., 16, 

Harvard University, 15. 

Harvey, William, 239. 

Hawaii, 317. 

Hayes, Rutherford B., 345. 

Heaven, made of daily experi- 
ences, 27; 239. 

Herron, Dr. George B., 204. 

Hindoo, the religion, 104. 

Hippolite-Rivail, Monsieur 
Leon, 227. 

Hodgson, Dr. Richard, 175, 
264, 274 ; view of Mrs. Piper, 
278; 305, 316, 317; 318; 
319; 320, 321, 322. 

Holy Trinity, 195. 

Home Rule, 16. 

Homer, 16. 

Howe, Julia Ward, 15. 

Hugo, Victor, 15, 91, 331. 

Hume, David, 144, 264. 

Hyslop, Professor, 238, 274. 



I. 



Dr. 



" Immortality, Human," 
William James on, 373. 

Imperator (spirit-control of 
Mrs. Piper), 253, 275, 279, 
281, 282, 303. 

Incarnation, the, 54. 

India, 163. 

Indianapolis, 313. 

Infinite energy, the, 193. 

Interstellar ether, 214. 

Isle of Wight, 314. 

Italy, 16, 44. 



390 



Index. 



J. 

James, Dr. William, 175, 264, 
274, 275 ; opinion of, r^-gard- 
in,2: Mrs. Piper, 278 ; 373. 

Janet, Paul, 25. 

January, 317. 

Jesus, the Christ, 17, 54, 56, 
61, 83; 85, 131 ; teachings 
of, 134; 219, 220, 239, 251, 
259. 

Jews, the, 34. 

Joule, James Prescott, 208. 

Judaism, 54. 

Judgment, the, 239. 

K. 

Kant, Tmmanuel, 263, 285. 

Katherine of Siena, 35, 37, 
40, 41, 42, 43,44, 388. 

Keeler, Professor in Lick Ob- 
servatory, 213. 

Keeley, idea of perpetual mo- 
tion of, 112. 

Kossuth, Ludvvig, 16. 

L. 

Lalla Maghnia, 163. 

Lang, Andrew, 246, 247. 

Le Conte, Dr. Joseph, views of 

human organism, 268. 
Lick, the telescope, 168. 
Life, Gates of New, 3 86. 
Light, lecture on, 306. 
Lincoln, Abraham, 15. 
Livermore, Rev. Dr. Daniel P., 

327. 
, Mary, nee Ashton, 15, 

170,327; letter of , 328,329, 
Lodge, Professor Oliver, 175, 

214, 264, 274. 
London. 300, 313. 314. 



Longfellow, Henry Wads- 
worth, 257. 

Louis, 244. 

Lowell Institute, the, 70, 150. 

Lowell, James Russell, lines 
of, on Channing, 308. 

Luther, Martin, 15 ; ascends 
Sancta Scala, 87 ; 144, 239. 

Lydgate, Dr. (character in 
" Middlemarch "), 380. 

Lytleton, Rev. Canon, 308. 

M. 

Maeterlinck, Maurice, 109, 
166. 

Mahomet, 239. 

Marconi, 78, 149, 167, 328, 
341. 

" Matter, Ether, and Motion," 
205. 

Mazzini, Giuseppe, 15, 16. 

McConnell, Rev. Dr. S. O., 
195. 

McKenzie, Rev. Dr. Alexan- 
der, 150. 

Meeker, Josephine, 345. 

, Nathan Cook, 345. 

, Mrs. Nathan Cook, re- 
markable experience of, 345; 
noble words of, on spiritual 
life, 346, 347. 

" Meiue Liebe Ich," 249. 

Memorial Department to Kate 
Field, 315. 

" Middlemarch," 380, 388. 

Millet, Jean Pran^ois, 16. 

Mont Cenis, 1 63. 

Moors, the, 163. 

Moreland, Bishop, 273, 

Mormon, the, 294. 

Morocco, 163. 

JMosaic, destruction of, 106. 

Moses Rev. Staiuton, 279, 280. 



Index. 



391 



Monssol, 243. 

Moiitin, Dr., 240, 243, 244. 

Muiiger, Kev. Dr. Theodore, 

359, 360. 
Mvers, ])r. Erederic W. H., 

2.5, 175, 237, 264, 266, 267, 

271, 319. 

N. 

Nan.sen, Dr. Fridjok, great re- 
searches of, 78. 

Navy, the U. S., 175. 

Newbold, Professor, 273. 

Newton, Isaac, 239. 

, Rev. Dr. Heber, 273. 

New York, 91, 301, 314, 329. 

Niagara Falls, utilizing cur- 
rent of, 91. 

Norton, Eliza Abrahams, 327, 
328. 



Observatory, the Lick, 168, 

213. 
Old Testament, the, 134. 
Oriental ethics, 18: philosophy 

of, 66. ^ ^ ^ 

Osborne House, 314. 
Over-Soul, the, 188. 
Oxford, University of, 246. 

P. 

Pacific, the, 292. 
Paderewski, Ignace, 47. 
Palazzo Pubblico, 37. 
Paradise, life of, 30. 
Paris, 240 ; exposition of, 177, 

227. 
Poirce, Professor Benjamin, 

defines man, 277. 
Pelham, George, pseud., 275. 



Pilate, Pontius, 87. 

Piper, Mrs. Leonora, 274, 275 ; 
organism of, as telephonic 
transmitter, 276; 277, 278, 
279, 281, 283, 290, 291, 292, 
294, 300, 301, 304, 305, 306, 
309, 312, 313,314, 316, 317, 
318 ; great test of, for Mrs. 
Livermore, 377. 

Phillips, Adelaide, 307. 

Philosophy, 253. 

"Phinuit, Dr.," spirit-control 
of Mrs. Piper, 275. 

Planchette, 293. 

Plato, 25, 32. 

Poe, Edgar Allan, 315, 316. 

Pole Star, the, 168. 

Potet, Baron de, 240. 

Potter, Rt. Kev. Henrv C, 
371. 

Present, the accepted time, 27. 

Protestant, the belief, 196. 

Psalms, 191. 

Psychic Research, Society of, 
25, 137, 263, 276, 298, 305. 

Public Library, the Boston, 
315. 

Putnam, Herbert, 315. 

Puysegurism, 242, 245. 

Pythagoras, 45. 

Q. 

Queen, the. Her Majesty Vic- 
toria, 314. 

Quincy, President of Harvard, 
45. 

R. 

Rector (spirit-control of Mrs. 

Piper), 275. 
Resurrection, the. 239. 
Reynolds, Col. William, 314. 
Ricliet, 25. 



392 



Index. 



Rochas, Col. de, 277. 
Kocky Mountains, 345. 
Rome, 87, 300. 
Rontgen, the ray, 56, 177, 179, 

214, 341, 363. 
Rosamond (character in" Mid- 

dlemarch"), 380. 
Royal Society, 208. 

S. 

Sabatier, 54. 

Saint Augustine, 163. 

Saint Paul, church of, 23 ; 89 ; 
wonderful words of, 94 ; 99, 
192, 213, 219, 228, 277, 299. 

Saint Thomas, 219. 

Sancta Scala, Luther's ascent 
of, 87. 

Savonarola, 62, 64. 

Science, discovers manifesta- 
tion of spirit in matter, 206. 

Scientists, British Association 
of, 24, 

See, Prof. T. J. J., 70. 

Seen, the plane of, 81 ; in re- 
lation to unseen, 131, 325. 

Sidgwick, Professor, 175, 264. 

Siena, 36, 37, 41, 42, 43, 44. 

Simplon, the, 163. 

Socrates, 239, 248. 

Sodom, apples of, 75, 144. 

Soul, the, 264. 

Spain, 163. 

Spiritualism, 137, 245, 253. 

Spiritual significance, the su- 
preme meaning of life, 14. 

" Spirit-Teachings," 279. 

Stead, William, 361, 362. 

Stedman, Edmund Clarence, 
315, 316. 

Stephenson, George, 239. 

Stone, Lucy, 15, 78. 

Strauss, David Friedrich, 144. 

Supreme Court, the, 110. 



Swedenborg, Emmanuel, 124, 

197. 
Symonds, John Addington, 38, 

39, 43. 



Tangiers, 183. 

Tennyson, Alfred, 15, 220, 248. 

Tesla, Nikola, 78, 149, 167, 

215; views on problem of 

human energy, 339. 
Thompson, Sir William, 300. 
Times, Catholic, the, 298. 
Times-Democrat, the, 317. 
Trinity Church (Boston), 295. 
Tunis, 27. 
Tuscany, 36. 
Twentieth Century, the, 16. 

U. 

Union Colony of Colorado, 
345. 

United States, 209, 317. 

Universe, the divine forces in, 
150. 

University, Harvard, 175; of 
Pennsylvania, 273. 

Unseen, aid of friends in, 59 ; 
close relation of life to, 139 ; 
communication with, 131; 
explored by psychic science, 
227 ; unseen companions in, 
143 ; influences from, 61 ; 
life in, 306; loves in, 99, 
man's relation to, 27 ; open 
communication with, 40 ; 
verities in, 79, 80. 

Utopia, 91. 



Vedder, Elihu, 315. 
Vision, goes before achieve- 
ment, 201. 



Index. 



393 



W. 

Wallace, Dr. Alfred Russel, 
estimates value of evideuce 
of an unseen world, 148; 
167; investigation of, 264; 
regards psychical research as 
in harmony with science, 272. 

Washington, 140. 

Watt, James, 237. 

Wesley, John, 15, 34, 239. 

Westminster Abbey, 131, 134. 

Wilberforce, Very Rev. Basil, 
Canon of Westminster, 94 ; 
preaches on the unseen 
world, 131 ; 132 ; extract 
from sermon of, 135 ; 139 ; 
184; 185; 255, 355; dis- 
cusses death, 356. 

, Ut. Hev. William, Bishop 

of Oxford, 247, 248. 



Wilderness, the, manna in, 80. 
Word, the divine, 299. 
Workers, the, 218. 
World Beautiful, the (third 

series), 312. 
Wyckoff, Walter, 218. 



X-rays, 215. 



X. 



Y. 



Yerkes, the telescope of, 168. 
Young, Charles Augustus,239 



Zeus, 25. 

Zollner, Friedrich, 264. 



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